Muggle Fairy Tales Are Mad!
by Meltha
Summary: During the Horcrux hunt in book 7, Hermione tells the boys Muggle fairy tales to pass the time. Now with Beauty and the Beast!
1. Goldilocks and the Three BeSerious ea

Author: Meltha

Rating: PG-ish

Feedback: Yes, thank you.

Spoilers: Through the end of the series

Distribution: The Blackberry Patch and . If you're interested, please let me know.

Summary: During the Horcrux hunt, the trio passes time by having Hermione tell Muggle fairy tales. On this particular night, Ron requests "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Tenth in a series of Muggle fairy tales retold.

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.

Author's note: Rather than have people searching around for updates to this series, I'm going to put all the new fairy tales together under the heading of Muggle Fairy Tales Are Mad, a title suggested by Kylani way back in Cinder(what-the-hell!)-a. The order of fics leading up to this one is (1) Cinder-What-the-Hell?-a, (2) Snow-Wh-at-Are-You-Kidding-Me?-ite, (3) Sleeping Bea-You-People-Are-Mad-ty, (4) Little Red Riding Ho-w-Is-That-Possible-od, (5) Rumple-Still-as-Crazy-as-Ever-tskin, (6) The Frog Pr-in-What-Way-Does-That-Make-Sense?-nce, (7) Rap-solutely-Mental!-unzel, (8) Jack the Giant Kill(Me-Now!)-er, and (9) Hansel and Gr(eat-Now-I'm-Hungry)-etel.

Goldilocks and the Three B(e-Serious-Now!)ears

"I'm hungry."

Ron and Harry both swiveled their heads in mute disbelief to Hermione, who was sitting on the old couch and looking glumly at the floor.

"Isn't that usually my line?" Ron asked her. "Then you say, 'Oh, shut it, Ron! We're all hungry and talking about it won't help!'"

Harry privately thought that Ron's screechy impression of Hermione's voice sounded a good deal more like Aunt Petunia than its intended target, but Hermione just stared at him bleakly. From nowhere, her stomach made an absolutely appalling squelching noise that clearly proved it was completely empty.

"Blimey," Harry said, mildly impressed. "You weren't kidding."

"I'm tired of being the good little girl who puts up with everything and never complains and acts like an adult all the bloody time!" she yelled. "Let someone else do it for once!"

Ron actually looked scared.

"Hermione?" he asked tentatively. "Um… are you all right?"

"No!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "My mum and dad don't even remember I'm alive, the Ministry of Magic would rather kill me than You-Know-Who, and I haven't had a decent meal in seven weeks! Even my socks are getting loose!"

She threw in a half-scream of total frustration, then punched one of the pillows so hard that feathers erupted all over the tent.

"Okay," Ron said, still looking slightly terrified. "Now that you've killed the evil throw pillow, do you feel any better?"

Hermione glared at him through the blizzard of down.

"A little," she admitted.

"Well, feel free to slaughter the cushions next if it'll help at all," he offered, his tone sounding rather like he was talking to someone on the Closed Ward at St. Mungo's.

Hermione sighed once, then went limp against the back of the couch.

"Sorry," she mumbled, embarrassment coloring her words. "That's been building for a bit."

"No kidding," Harry said, poorly concealing his shock.

"Food's been stretched worse than usual lately," Ron said, patting her sympathetically on the back. "It's only natural you'd snap eventually."

"I suppose," she said, her face red as a radish. "Can we just forget this happened?"

"Maybe," Ron said slyly, "but only if you tell us another one of those stupid Muggle fairy tales."

Harry noted that Ron's hand somehow hadn't quite moved from Hermione's back, not that she seemed to mind all that much. He sighed and wondered just how much longer their little dance was going to go on before one or the other turned into a hormonal time bomb.

"Oh, I suppose I can," Hermione said, grinning.

"Are there any other ones with food in them?" Ron asked. "I liked the gingerbread house one."

Quietly Harry thought food might be exactly the wrong thing to bring up, but Hermione laughed, so he assumed that things weren't going to approach critical mass again in the immediate future. He wasn't sure he'd ever understand girls.

"Actually, there is another one I can think of," Hermione said, sitting cross-legged and looking more relaxed. "It's called 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears.'"

Ron raised an eyebrow.

"Is that the girl's name? Goldilocks?" he asked.

"Well, yes," Hermione said. "I mean, I suppose it's really her nickname, but it's the name she goes by in the story at any rate."

"Yeah," Ron said. "Okay, is she blonde?"

"Of course!" Hermione said, looking at him in confusion.

"It's just that, what with the logic of these stories, it'd make perfect sense for her to be a brunette or a red-head or something," Ron said. "I suppose I can accept that."

"Actually, in some of the really old versions of the story, her name is Silverlocks, and she's an old lady with grey hair, but most of the later versions have her as a little blonde girl," Hermione said. "All right then, once upon a time…"

She paused, looking at Ron significantly, but he merely motioned her to continue. Harry thought there was a good chance he was doing his utmost not to set off Hermione again with his usual choral beginning, and he mentally applauded the effort.

"…there lived a little girl with her parents in a great big forest," Hermione continued.

"Uh-oh," Ron said. "That's not going to end well."

Well, Harry thought with a shrug, Ron had lasted all of ten seconds before interrupting. Technically, that was a personal best.

"You're quite right," Hermione said, giving him a terse nod. "As usual we have the forest standing in as a symbol of danger and isolation, complete with primeval associations with the borders of civilization and the chaos inherent in nature, which is of course outside of human control."

"Say," Ron said suddenly, "why do we keep camping in forests so often if they're so bloody dangerous? I mean, if this were a story, it would suggest something bad was going to happen to us out here!"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all exchanged looks.

"On the other hand, the forest provides excellent cover," Hermione said, her voice straining a little as she tried to look on the bright side. "We couldn't exactly set up camp in the middle of town, could we?"

"Suppose not," Ron said. "It'd be nice if we could, though. It gets lonely out here sometimes."

"And what are we? Pickled herring?" Hermione said, gesturing to herself and Harry.

"No," Ron said quickly. "You know, it's just… we're around each other so much that it's almost like the Burrow. Even if Fred and George are running around exploding things, it's still possible to get lonely because that's just normal."

"I suppose I see your meaning," she said, giving him a smile that let Harry know there wasn't going to be another explosion of a different kind. "Anyway, one day Goldilocks decided to take a walk through the woods all on her own, even though she wasn't supposed to."

"Stupid kid should have talked to the girl with the red hat, you know, if it was one of the versions where she survived," Ron said. "Going into the woods alone is a bad, bad idea."

"I quite agree," Hermione said. "Meanwhile, in another part of the woods, three bears were just sitting down to their morning porridge."

Ron looked at Harry, who shrugged.

"Go ahead, mate," he said. "I don't get it either."

"What's the problem?" Hermione asked.

"Now, I take it this is going to be one of those stories with talking animals again, right? Like the wolf in 'Little Red Riding Hat'?" Ron asked.

"'Hood,' Ron, but yes, these are talking animals again," Hermione said. "It's just one of those things you have to get used to, kind of like Babbity-Rabbity being able to talk even though an Animagus can't."

"Yeah, fine, but at least the wolf was still acting like a wolf, you know? I mean he ate meat and ran around in the woods and bothered old ladies," Ron said, counting off on his fingers.

"Generally speaking wolves usually don't attack humans unless cornered, aside from werewolves of course," Hermione said.

"Right, but bears do not usually eat porridge," Ron said firmly. "I mean, I suppose maybe they might if they found some lying about in a ditch or something, and we should have such luck, but it doesn't seem like that's what's happening at all."

"No," Hermione said, taking a deep breath as though she were steeling herself for an unpleasant task. "You may as well know right now that the bears live in a little cottage, the mother bear cooked breakfast, they eat off china, they sleep in beds, and they have a full set of dining room furniture."

Ron wrinkled his nose skeptically, then turned to Harry.

"Why do I think Hagrid would probably love this story, but only if the bears were Manticores or something equally horrifying?" he said.

"Probably because the man once gave a dragon a teddy bear," Harry said with a grin.

"Point taken. So, go on, Hermione. What did the freakishly humanoid bears do during their breakfast of porridge?" he asked with exaggerated politeness.

"Well, Mother Bear had set out all three bowls of porridge, but they were too hot to eat. 'Come, let us take a walk through the woods until the porridge cools enough to eat,' said Father Bear, and Baby Bear squealed in delight as they left," Hermione said.

"Father Bear, Mother Bear, and Baby Bear?" Ron asked, his face screwing up as though he'd just bit into a lemon. "A bit twee, isn't that?"

"It's a children's story, Ronald," Hermione said.

"Yeah, right, a kid's story, so what happens next? The bears go for a pleasant stroll, run into Goldilocks, and eat her alive?" Ron said sarcastically, then paused. "Wait, is that really what happens?"

"No," Hermione said. "They simply went for a walk in one direction, and Goldilocks happened upon their cottage while they were out."

"I think mine might have been more interesting," Ron said, slouching against one of the surviving couch pillows. "So Blondie-Ringlets finds the adorable, pwecious wittle cottage that belongs to three slavering, rabid, talking bears with a penchant for making porridge. Then what?"

"She went into the house," Hermione said simply.

"Just like that?" Ron said, frowning.

"Yes, without so much as a knock on the front door, she just walked into someone else's house," she said. "It was terribly rude of her."

"It was bloody well breaking and entering is what it was," Ron said. "That'd be like Apparating into someone's home without an invitation or summat. What's this story trying to teaching the little tykes? How to become burglars?"

"Yeah, not sure even Dudley would have pulled that one," Harry said. "I can picture Lucius Malfoy doing it, though, seeing an 'intriguing little cottage'" he added, doing his best imitation of the overly-regal Death Eater's disdainful sniff.

"Not bad, Harry," Ron said approvingly, "but you forgot the hair flick. When he's really being a prat, Malfoy's father always swishes his hair around like the birds in the adverts for Madame Peony's Enchanting Essences shampoo."

Hermione giggled at this image, but Harry had to admit, Ron had a point there.

"Back to the story, though. If you think Goldilocks was being naughty before, you haven't heard the half of it yet," Hermione said.

"What, she makes off with their honey pot and all the dosh in the biscuit barrel?" Ron asked.

"Well, no, not exactly. The first thing she did was look at the three chairs ranged around the kitchen table. First she sat in Father Bear's chair, but she said, 'This chair is too hard,'" Hermione said, making her voice extremely squeaky.

Harry couldn't help thinking that Hermione's rendition of Goldilocks's voice made her sound rather like a cartoon Dudley used to watch that had high-pitched blue people living in the middle of a mushroom patch. Granted, he'd never gotten more than a peep of it from the next room since it was on Dudley's personal TV, and he was sure the Dursleys would have had a fit since there was a wizard on the show, but even so it had stuck with him. This had the unfortunate side effect of making his mental image of Goldilocks turn to a bright Delft blue in his mind, and suddenly he remembered that the one and only girl in that mushroom village had been a blonde. Smurfette was forever after the only thing he could picture whenever anyone mentioned Goldilocks.

"What?" Hermione said, looking at him in a way that showed his face had betrayed his odd thoughts.

"Believe me," Harry said, "it would take much too long to explain."

"Yeah, go on, Hermione," Ron urged. "The first chair was too hard on her bum. Then what?"

"Well, she moved on to the Mother Bear's chair, but this wasn't right either. 'Oh! This chair is too soft!' she cried," Hermione said, and Harry forced himself not to start humming that ridiculous theme song in reaction to her faulty falsetto.

"Too soft?" Ron asked. "How can a chair be too soft? Is the kid worried about proper back support or something?"

"I don't know, but the upshot is she didn't like it," Hermione said. "Finally, she came to Baby Bear's chair and said 'This chair is just right!' It was a rocking chair, and she rocked back and forth happily, faster and faster, but much too wildly, and she broke the chair all to pieces."

"Nice. Now she's not only breaking and entering; she's also a vandal," Ron said. "Just how hard do you have to rock a chair to make it come apart at the seams, anyway?"

"Probably shoddy craftsmanship by Father Bear," Harry said, and Ron whacked him on the back of the head.

"So, after breaking Baby Bear's chair, she noticed the three bowls of porridge on the table," Hermione said.

"Feeling peckish, is she?" Ron asked knowingly.

"Apparently, but she was still very picky," Hermione said. "First she went to Father Bear's bowl and took a bite. 'Ooo, this is too hot!' she said. Next she moved to Mother bear's bowl and tasted it. 'Oh, this is too cold!'"

"Wait, the porridge is from the same pot, yet part of it is too hot and part's too cold?" Ron asked. "That doesn't seem right."

"Actually, it's quite possible," Hermione said, squinting. "Depending upon whether the porridge was cooked over a fireplace or on a wood burning stove, there could be hot spots under the pot being used, which could create pockets of warmer or cooler temperatures due to uneven placement of the heating element. In addition, the bowls could be a mismatched set, meaning that the mother's bowl might be shallow or have a wider mouth, both of which would speed cooling, or the father's bowl might be better insulated in some way. You also can't leave out the possibility of a draught blowing from an open window on one part of the table but not on the other. And of course there's also the chance that Goldilock's tongue was burned on the first bowl or porridge, making her perceptions of warm and cool less accurate immediately afterwards."

Ron and Harry looked at one another.

"Did you just give an impromptu speech on the scientific explanation for uneven porridge temperature?" Ron asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Um, well, yes, I suppose so," Hermione said.

"We really need to get out more," Ron replied, shaking his head. "Okay, so one was too hot, which, really, why doesn't she just blow on it, and one was too cold, meaning the bears had been out on their walk too long already."

"Right. Goldilocks tried Baby Bear's porridge and said 'This is just right!' and gobbled every bite," Hermione said.

"Okay, breaking and entering, vandalism, and now theft of a baby bear's breakfast," Ron said, counting on his fingers. "Kid is piling up quite a record."

"After glutting herself on ill-gotten porridge, Goldilocks found she felt quite sleepy," Hermione said. "She decided to wander upstairs to see if there was anyplace she might take a nap."

"Wait, what?" Ron said, his face an illustration in disbelief. "She just went upstairs to sleep in some strange person's bed? Okay, now she's not just naughty, she's bonkers!"

"It really does sound awful, doesn't it?" Hermione agreed. "When you consider that in the original 'Silverlocks' rendition it was actually an old lady, it suggests that she might have some form of dementia, which really makes the story much less funny and much sadder, but for a child, she does come off as being either very young or very stupid."

"Yeah, I suppose," Ron said. "So the kid wants a nap."

"Yes. First she tried Father Bear's bed but said, 'This bed is too big!'" Hermione said. "Then she tried Mother Bear's bed and said, 'This bed is too small!'"

"Must be some trouble in the bears' marriage," Ron said, looking at Harry. "Separate beds and all."

Hermione flushed scarlet but gamely plodded on.

"Finally, Goldilocks tried Baby Bear's bed and said…," Hermione began.

"'This bed is just right!'" Ron cut in, his squeaky falsetto much worse than hers, and he added an eye roll worthy of someone who'd drunk a good deal of Ogden's.

"Correct," Hermione said, sounding annoyed, "and she fell fast asleep."

"Wait, though. How is Baby Bear's bed just right when Mother Bear's bed is too small? Just how big is Baby Bear?" Ron asked.

"I… hadn't really thought of that," Hermione said. "It's still smaller than Father Bear's bed, though."

"Mum Bear must have a girlish figure," Ron said. "Good on her, losing the weight after the apparently massive baby was born."

"Just then, who should come home but the bear family, and they knew at once something had happened. 'Someone's been sitting in my chair!' Father Bear cried. 'Someone's been sitting in my chair!" Mother Bear cried. 'Someone's been sitting in my chair!" Baby Bear said, "and they've broken it all to pieces!'"

"Okay, Baby Bear I get. His rocker is smashed into matchsticks. Really, the parents probably should have noticed that themselves first. But how on earth did Mother and Father know someone had sat in their chairs?" Ron asked.

"Maybe they were drawn away from the table?" Hermione ventured.

"Pretty lame excuse," Ron said, sniffing.

"Well, they are bears," Hermione huffed. "Maybe they could smell a human had been there."

"Or maybe the cushions were crooked," Harry suggested meekly, worried by how red her face was getting.

"Yeah, I suppose one of those could do it too," Ron acquiesced, and Harry was glad to realize that he too could scent danger. "Then what?"

"Then they went into the kitchen and noticed the porridge," Hermione said. "First, Father Bear went to his bowl and said, 'Someone's been eating my porridge!' Then Mother Bear looked at hers and said, 'Someone's been eating my porridge!'"

"Well, not much of a loss, really, what with Mother Bear's being stone cold," Ron said. "Still, how could they tell someone had eaten their porridge when only one bite was gone?"

"Dirty spoons," Hermione said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, okay then," Ron said amiably enough and smiling. "That makes good sense."

"Then Baby Bear said, 'Someone's been eating my porridge, and it's all gone!'" Hermione said, making Baby Bear's voice somehow even higher than before with a plaintive wail.

"Poor kid," Ron said, shaking his head. "Nothing will make you grumpier than some rotten little kid stealing your breakfast."

"Grumpy as a bear," Harry put in with a sly grin.

"By this time, the bears were very upset, and they ran upstairs to their bedrooms," Hermione said.

"Why didn't they just call a policebear?" Ron said.

Harry saved Hermione the trouble and thumped him with one of the remaining ungutted pillows.

"Anyway," she said, continuing, "Father Bear said, 'Someone's been sleeping in my bed!'"

"And it apparently isn't Mother Bear," Ron said, giving Harry a look.

"'Someone's been sleeping in my bed!' said Mother Bear, and so help me, Ronald, if you make another crack about that I'm going to spell your toenails to grow inwards," Hermione said in a dangerously even voice.

Ron primly sat on his hands, his mouth clamped shut.

"Finally, Baby Bear cried, 'Someone's been sleeping in my bed, and there she is!'" Hermione added with a triumphant flourish.

"Uh-oh," Harry said. "I'm guessing someone's nap is about to be interrupted."

"At once, all the bears sprang into the room, and Goldilocks woke at once to realize the horrible mistake she had made," Hermione said.

"Yeah, I'm guessing she didn't realize she was burgling a bunch of bears," Ron said, then stopped. "That doesn't sound right. A pack of bears? A pride? No, that's lions."

"Actually, it's a sloth of bears, or occasionally a sleuth," Hermione said quickly.

Ron and Harry stared at her.

"For pity's sake, girl, is there nothing you don't know?" Ron said with a whistle.

"Plenty, and don't use a double negative in your sentences or you'll reverse the meaning," Hermione said automatically. "In any case, Goldilocks woke up to three very angry bears, and that's where the story goes one of two ways."

"I'm guessing one of them involves Goldilocks being a replacement for the porridge," Ron suggested.

"Yes, in one version the bears eat Goldilocks and that's the end," Hermione said. "In another version though, they chase her down the stairs and out the door, or occasionally out a window. She runs back home and never again goes into the woods by herself."

"Probably wasn't all too fond of porridge after that either," Ron said. "It's weird, but I hope someone fixed Baby Bear's chair at some point. I feel sorry for the little, or perhaps not so little if we're going by bed size, talking-bear-freak-child."

Hermione looked at him quizzically.

"Well, if it's any help, when my parents used to tell the story to me, they had Baby Bear and Goldilocks become friends and then Father Bear fixed the rocking chair and they all had a late breakfast of porridge," she said. "That's strictly a non-traditional rendering of the text, though, and would undermine the morals of not wandering off on one's own and the importance of respecting other people's property."

"Yeah, but it's a nicer ending," Ron said with a shrug. "And it's not like you grew up to wander around on your own in the woods or break into people's houses to get food…"

The three of them looked at each other, realizing that was pretty much exactly what all of them were doing on a daily basis whenever possible.

"Oh, well, right then," Ron said. "At any rate, you don't break chairs."

"No, you just eviscerate pillows," Harry added with a laugh.

Hermione gave him a strange look, and then began making a choking sound that quickly become gales of laughter. Ron appeared to feel safe enough to join in, and it seemed things had righted themselves once more. They turned in early that night, each one silently hoping that somehow there really would be porridge for breakfast in the morning, or anything at all. Harry's greatest hope, though, was that he wouldn't have that ridiculous "la-la-lalala-la" song playing in the background of all his dreams that night.


	2. Beauty and the UnBefreakinglievablea

Author: Meltha

Rating: PG-ish

Feedback: Yes, thank you.

Spoilers: Through the end of the series

Distribution: The Blackberry Patch and . If you're interested, please let me know.

Summary: During the Horcrux hunt, the trio passes time by having Hermione tell Muggle fairy tales. On this particular night, Ron requests "Beauty and the Beast." Eleventh in a series of Muggle fairy tales retold.

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.

Beauty and the (Un)Be(Freaking-lievable)ast

The leaves had long since turned brown and red, and the stark wind of autumn was moaning through the empty branches in the deserted stretch of woods where the Trio were camping tonight. It was the sort of sound that made Harry shudder even when he was safely inside the warmth of the tent. He wanted to get up and move, to do something, anything, but there just wasn't anything he could think of that would improve things. The Horcrux lay on a small table by the couch, concealed from view by a pillow, but it felt like it was still tainting everything around them. Harry could almost see the poison it was leaking into the room, increasing his anxiety until he was sure Ron and Hermione were smothering under its influence as well.

"I'm bored," Ron said suddenly.

Well, Harry thought, so much for that deep-seated, world-pivoting worry. Apparently Ron's greatest problem was creeping ennui.

"Have you tried opening your textbooks?" Hermione asked without looking up from yet another perusal of Beedle. "I made a point of packing all the books we'd need if we were having a proper seventh year."

"What's the point of running about the countryside in grave peril if we don't at least get out of doing schoolwork?" Ron said as he tried (and failed) to juggle an apple core from their lunch. "Seriously, if being chased by You-Know-Who while trying to save existence as humanity knows it isn't grounds for a note of excuse, nothing is. I mean, really, what person in their right mind wants to spend all their time reading huge, dull books filled with educational stuff no one will ever need to know?"

Hermione leveled a look at Ron above the tattered book's cover that Harry thought was probably the closest he'd ever seen her come to looking like Bellatrix.

"Pardon, but did you just call me daft?" she said in tones so wintry that Harry swore he could feel the temperature in the tent drop ten degrees.

Harry shot Ron a look of utter panic, hoping that his fool of a friend was smart enough to back-peddle on the disastrous statement he'd just made.

"What? I mean, no, not, you know, that is to say, I…," Ron began, his face clashing horribly with his hair as he went red.

"Or perhaps you only meant that I'm dull, or maybe that the things I've spent time and effort learning aren't actually of any use to you," Hermione said, and Harry noted that one of the glasses sitting on the draining board behind her was starting to vibrate dangerously.

"No, no, I mean, if you didn't know all that boring stuff we'd probably be rotting in Azkaban now or worse!" Ron said, looking more than a little alarmed.

"Look, Hermione, we really do appreciate you," Harry broke in, hoping that she might gloss over Ron's calling her boring while apologizing. "Seriously! I mean, without you we would have been nabbed at Bill and Fleur's wedding, and you figured out how to pack everything, and guard the tent, and translate the runes, and well, you stopped me from sitting in that patch of Itching Imps last night."

"Story!" Ron blurted out suddenly.

Hermione and Harry both turned their heads to stare at him.

"Ehm, just, maybe another story would, you know, get us talking about something else… and keep me from sounding like a prat again for five minutes," he mumbled, scratching his head and looking apologetic. "Please?"

Hermione blinked a couple times, and Harry wondered if somehow Ron hadn't managed to say precisely the wrong thing yet again, but then she let out a long sigh and nodded.

"Fine, a story. At least that's something I know that's not boring," she said, still sounding rather bitter as she settled back into the chair. "What sort of story do you want?"

"I don't know. What kind do you want?" Ron asked.

Harry was stunned to see that Hermione at once smiled, really smiled.

"Are you actually asking me what story I'd like to tell?" she said happily.

"Well, yeah," Ron said, sounding puzzled.

"We sort of haven't really asked you what your favorite is, I suppose," Harry said, realizing that this might be exactly what it took to make her feel appreciated.

"Yeah," Ron said, cottoning on. "You tell us whatever your favorite is… well, if you haven't already."

"Actually, no, I haven't," Hermione said, switching to a cross legged position. "I always loved it when my father would tell me the story of 'Beauty and the Beast.'"

"So, tell us that one then," Ron said magnanimously with a wave of his hand that Harry thought might be just a shade too lordly, but after a brief pause, Hermione nodded.

"All right then," she said. "Once upon…"

"…a time," Ron finished, and Harry tried to give him another furtive look to watch himself a bit, but thankfully Hermione seemed to have realized this would be coming.

"Yes, Ronald," she continued, managing to grimace only a little. "There lived three sisters and their father in a cottage deep in the woods."

"Mum's dead again?" Ron asked in a surprisingly pleasant voice.

"Yes, the mother is dead again," Hermione said, rubbing her forehead in a sure sign of vexation. "It's a common theme. Just go with it."

"Okay, but at least this time we've got three sisters who are all actually related to one another," Ron said. "Perhaps that will go better for them."

"Perhaps, or perhaps not," Hermione said mysteriously. "The family had once been very wealthy and prosperous, but the father, who had owned many merchant ships, had suffered a serious blow to his fortunes. Every one of his ships was lost in a great hurricane, and he and his daughters were left destitute."

"Wait, he lost all of his ships in one big hurricane? What was he doing sending them into a hurricane in the first place?" Ron asked.

"Well, Muggles weren't always very good at telling what the weather would be like until they invented radar and satellites and lots of other things that help them track of where hurricanes and storms and things are going to be," Hermione said. "This was long before all that was invented."

"What's a satellite?" Ron asked.

"Oh, it's sort of like, hmm…," Hermione said, furrowing her brow in thought. "Can you picture a camera strapped onto an unmanned broomstick and flying higher than a Muggle airplane?"

Ron stared at her.

"Why the hell would anyone do that? It would go crashing into something sooner or later," he said.

"Well, no, you see, from that high up, the camera sends a picture of the clouds and wind currents and precipitation and the like back down to the Muggles, and they're able to figure out ahead of time whether storms are coming their way. Usually," Hermione said.

"On a broomstick?" Ron said, still looking at her as though she'd gone off her nut.

"Not a real broomstick, of course," Hermione said, starting to get flustered again. "It's actually a big metal thing that's launched into space and circles the globe in orbit, but I was just trying to compare it to something you might understand."

"Right, because strapping cameras to broomsticks is common behavior in the wizarding world," Ron said.

"Actually, it might be rather fun at that," Harry said, really pondering it. "I mean, picture a camera on a seeker's broom during a Quidditch match, and the picture is sent to a big screen so the crowd can see everything from the player's viewpoint."

"Hey, yeah!" Ron said, getting excited. "Quidditch cam! You know something, Harry? I think you're onto something there! That'd be dead brilliant, that would!"

Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them and then shrugged.

"Actually, it probably would be, but we've gotten pretty far from the story. In any case, because Muggles didn't have satellites back then, the father had indeed lost his whole fleet of ships…"

"Rotten luck, that," Ron said, shaking his head.

"Indeed, and now they had been forced to sell all their fine things and live in a tiny house in the middle of the forest," Hermione said. "The two oldest daughters complained loudly to their father about everything that they had to endure."

"I can't really blame them. If you don't know when bad weather's going to strike, he really should have kept at least one ship in port the whole time, so it pretty much is his fault they're penniless now," Ron said. "I'd grouse too."

"But the youngest daughter never said a word in anger, knowing her father already felt horrible for what had happened and she didn't want to make him feel any worse," Hermione said, continuing as though Ron hadn't spoken.

"Oh," Ron said, blushing a bit. "Ehm, well, that was right decent. Good on her."

"Very," Harry added in, feeling rather bad for Ron and wondering if he was drawing a parallel between the two complaining sisters and the way he sometimes talked about the lack of money in the Weasley family. "Do any of these people have names?"

"Only the youngest daughter has a name in the story, and she's called Beauty because she's so lovely," Hermione said, moving on quickly as though she too sensed that Ron was embarrassed by his misstep.

"They call her Beauty?" Ron said, raising an eyebrow.

"In the French version that translates to Belle, which isn't really that odd of a name," Hermione explained.

"Could be worse," he said appreciatively. "I suppose they could have named her Spectacular or Fetching or Dazzling or Hottie McHotterson or something."

Harry snorted loudly, and Hermione gave Ron a look of utter disbelief.

"Hottie McHotterson?" she said slowly.

"You can't argue that wouldn't be worse than Beauty," Ron said simply.

"No, I absolutely cannot argue that," Hermione said with a shake of her head. "In any case, Beauty did nearly all of the work around the house while her sisters sat and mourned for the days when they had servants to do everything for them or gossiped about the country boys and whether any of them would choose to marry a girl with no dowry."

"What's a dowry?" Ron asked.

Harry shuddered and quietly asked Anyone who might be listening to please keep Hermione's explanation of the commoditization of females through bride price to a maximum of thirty minutes at most. Glancing at his watch after Hermione used the phrase "equating the institution of marriage to a banking operation with the bride's father acting as broker of his daughter's personhood," he realized that not only had Anyone apparently been away from his desk at the time of his plea but also Ron had actually started to doze. Harry scented danger in the offing.

"Okay!" he said entirely too loudly and noticed that Ron shuddered awake in his seat, though fortunately Hermione apparently didn't. "Yes, well, thankfully those days are long past in the wizarding world, and it was a rotten thing to do."

"Yeah," Ron said a touch too emphatically. "Dowries are bad!"

Hermione gave him a searching look for a moment.

"Uh… they are bad, right?" Ron mumbled out of the side of his mouth to Harry, who almost imperceptibly nodded.

"Well, at least that's settled," Hermione said, seeming to be pacified.

"Thank Merlin," Ron said sotto voce.

"One day, as the two older sisters were lounging about and Beauty was cleaning, a messenger arrived for their father. He told them that one of their ships had only been blown far off course and was finally coming back into port in a few days time," Hermione said.

"That's great!" Ron said. "So they're rich again?"

"That's precisely what they all thought," Hermione said. "The father made plans to leave at once to meet the ship when it arrived in the port of the great city, and his two oldest daughters immediately came up with lists of things they wanted him to buy for them with their newly restored wealth."

"Yeah, just think of all the stuff you could get if you suddenly went from being poor to filthy rich," Ron said, a dreamy look on his face, then he glanced over at Harry. "Blimey, when you first found out you had all that money in your vault when you were eleven, how did you manage not to go bonkers and buy up half of Diagon Alley?"

"I dunno," Harry said, frowning. "I thought about it, but I suppose Hagrid kept me rather on track. Besides, after years spent sleeping with spiders under a cupboard, just getting clothes that fit and an ice cream cone seemed like I was being posh."

"I suppose," Ron said. "Still, I think I would have at least bought a solid gold Snitch or something."

"He didn't even know what a Snitch was then, Ron," Hermione said with an edge to her voice.

"Well, I guess that explains it then," Ron said with a shrug. "So daughters one and two wanted, what, fancy dresses and jewelry and the like?"

"Yes," Hermione said, "but when the father asked Beauty what she wanted, she said only, 'I'd like a rose, please, if it isn't too much trouble.'"

"A rose?" Ron asked. "Seriously, the girl just wanted a rose?"

"Yes," Hermione said.

"I can't decide whether that's one of the saddest things I've ever heard or if this girl is just really good at trying to get a lot of presents by being extra humble," Ron said.

Hermione sighed and waved her hand as if to tell Ron to think whatever he liked, then continued on.

"The father set off to the city, which was a journey of several days through the woods," she said when Ron politely raised his hand exactly as if he were in class. "Yes?"

"Did he meet a talking cannibalistic wolf?" he asked seriously.

"No, no wolves in this story," Hermione said.

"What how about an evil witch who keeps maidens in giant towers?" Harry chimed in.

"No, no witch," Hermione said.

"A castle surrounded by big thorns with people impaled on them?"

"A cottage with seven dwarfs?

"A cottage with anthropomorphic bears?"

"A cottage made of gingerbread?"

"Hey, you ever notice how many cottages are in these things?" Ron said, breaking the litany.

Hermione seemed to be biting her lip not to laugh, but she finally said in a voice that was cracking a little, "No, he didn't run into any of those on his way to the city. In fact, his journey was quite uneventful."

"Oh," Ron said, looking disappointed. "I was rather hoping something would happen. Seems anticlimactic otherwise."

"Unfortunately, when he got to the city, it turned out that the ship wasn't his, and he had to return to his little home as poor as he had left it," Hermione told them.

"Well, that bloody well stinks!" Ron complained. "Bad enough he winds up poor without basically losing everything all over again!"

"Yeah, that's pretty harsh," Harry agreed.

"Even worse, on his way back through the woods, he became lost in a terrible thunderstorm," Hermione said. "He stumbled on through the rain, the wind whipping through the branches of the trees and tearing at him with every step, when suddenly, in the flash from one of the lightning bolts he saw a set of high gates in front of him, and on the other side of them was an enormous castle."

"Ah-ha!" Ron cried. "I knew it! Nothing happened going through the woods the first time, but when he goes back through them, then we get the weird stuff!"

"Yes, Ronald, your powers of prognostication rival those of Professor Trelawney," Hermione sighed. "He ran to the gates and begged for entry or else he would perish in the storm, and slowly the gates opened, though no one was there."

"Like the automatic doors at the Muggle market," Ron said knowingly.

"That's significantly less eerie than the effect I was going for, but yes," Hermione said as though she had decided she was on the losing side of a battle regardless of what she did. "The father walked all the way to the castle, and the main door swung open just as before. He called out to thank his benefactor, but once again, no one answered. Torches lit themselves down a corridor one by one, and he followed them into a great dining room where a meal appeared on the table for him. He ate hungrily, and once he was done, another set of torches lit his way to a comfortable bedroom where he slept until dawn."

"Huh," Ron said. "Okay, so the self-lighting torches are a bit of magic any First Year could do, but the food appearing on the table sounds like the place might have some House-elves."

Hermione stopped and tilted her head to one side, thinking, before she said slowly, "Actually, that is remarkably similar to what happens at Hogwarts for dinner, isn't it?"

"Right," Harry said, "and Hogwarts has a big gate in front of it as well, and it's a castle of course, and it's set off in the woods…"

The three of them looked at one another, all a bit startled.

"Yes, so," Hermione continued, obviously feeling unnerved, "the father slept well and called out his thanks to whoever had helped him, then walked down to the door and through a lovely garden back towards the gate he'd entered. He noticed that the garden was full of the most beautiful red roses he had ever seen, hundreds and thousands of them. 'Well,' he said to himself, 'I may not be able to bring home anything my two oldest daughters wanted, but perhaps I can at least give Beauty her rose.'"

"That'll go over well. 'Hey, everybody, we're still poor, but at least I got Beauty her posy!' I'm sure they'll perk right up over that," Ron said.

"But no sooner had the man plucked a single rose than a horrible, enormous beast appeared before him, snarling ferociously," Hermione said, doing her best to sound snarly, but in fact sounding more like she had a bad cold.

"Oh," Ron said soberly. "That's bad. A werewolf?"

"No, it was daylight, remember?" Harry said, warding off Hermione's response.

"Yes," she said to Harry. "Well spotted. No, he was simply a very large, very hairy animal."

"Like that talking wolf with Red Hat?" Ron asked.

"I suppose a little like that, but he wasn't a wolf," Hermione said.

"Was he wearing a grandmother's nightgown?" Ron asked with deceptive sincerity, but his eyes were dancing gleefully.

"No, he was not!" Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said. "Would have been interesting if he was."

"Anyway," Hermione said, plowing forward, "the beast grabbed the man and shook him, saying 'I have given you shelter, hospitality, safety, and you reward my kindness with theft!'"

"Geez, mate, calm down, it's only a flower," Ron said, looking sympathetic. "He's got a whole garden of them!"

"Ah, but the beast was very selfish," Hermione explained. "He then said that the penalty for stealing a rose from his garden was death."

Ron looked at her, then at Harry, then back at Hermione again.

"For one rose?" Ron asked as though he needed to clarify this point.

"Yes," Hermione said, folding her arms.

"Okay, I know some of Sprout's plants are pretty expensive and all, but that's way too steep a price for pilfering one rose," Ron said.

"It's very extreme, yes, but the beast insisted he was going to kill the man as punishment for his treachery. The man begged for his life, saying he had three daughters with no one else in the world to care for them, and this gave the beast pause," Hermione said.

"Well, maybe he's got a heart after all," Harry said.

"'Perhaps you need not die,' the beast said, and he led the man to his stables where there was a magnificent white charger," Hermione said. "'This horse will take you home in the blink of an eye. Once you are there, you have until sundown. If one of your daughters agrees to come back and take your place here, I shall let you live, but if none of them do, you must swear to return and face your death. If you break your promise, I will come for you myself.'"

"Oh, for pity's sake, this is another one of those stories where the parents swap the kids' lives for their own, isn't it!" Ron said indignantly.

"Not quite," Hermione soothed him. "You'll see. The beast sat the man on the horse's back, and at once he found himself back outside his little cottage again."

"Portkey," Ron commented at once.

Hermione looked at him quizzically.

"Not the horse, obviously, since a living thing can't be one, but maybe the saddle," Ron said. "Strap a portkey on a horse, sit someone on top of it and tell them to hang on tight, and they'll think the horse brought them there. Plus there's the preplanned return at sunset, which you can do with a portkey too."

"Hey, yeah," Harry said. "That'd work perfectly, wouldn't it!"

"It really would," Hermione said, raising her eyebrows. "This seems to be another story that wizards had a hand in somewhere."

"Okay, so what's dear old Dad do when he gets home to his daughters," Ron said, hunkering down on the small sofa and appearing to get more comfortable.

"Well, he told them about the ship, and while Beauty was disappointed, the two older daughters berated their father and wailed with misery, thinking only of themselves," Hermione said.

"Poor father. I don't think he's got much chance of those two taking his place," Ron said. "Pretty sure he might like to be shod of them, too."

"Then the father gave Beauty her rose, and when she asked where he got it, he told them the story of his strange stay in the castle and the penalty the beast had laid on him for taking the rose. At once, the two older sisters turned on Beauty, saying that her selfishness in wanting a rose had caused the whole problem," Hermione said.

"Wait, wait, the girl just asked for a rose. She didn't say, 'Hey, Dad, go steal a rose out of a crazy psychopathic beast's garden for me, will you?'" Ron said.

"No, she'd asked for the least of them all, and yet the sisters blamed her for everything. The father, however, said that this was foolishness and that he had only until sunset to arrange affairs for them because he had to return to the beast to take his punishment," Hermione continued.

"So he's not going to sell out one of his kids?" Ron asked, sounding extremely pleased.

"No, it never even crossed his mind to let one of his daughters take his place," Hermione said.

"Wow," Ron said, smiling, "an actual, decent, moral, nice parent. I think I like this story."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "If that were Uncle Vernon, he'd already have duct taped me to the saddle and whacked the horse to get it started."

"Beauty, however, felt deeply guilty that her rose had caused all the trouble, and her sisters' unkind words made her feel even worse," Hermione said.

"Aw, poor kid," Ron said. "She must take after her dad."

"'I wonder,' she said, 'if I sit upon the horse, would it take me back to the beast in my father's place?' And so that's just what she did. She slipped out the door, mounted the horse, and at once it took off at top speed moments before the sun set. She could see her father and her sisters staring in horror out the window for a single second, and the next she was outside the gates of the beast's castle," Hermione said. "The horse wandered towards the house, and the moment they had passed into the beast's domain, the gates clanged shut behind them, locking them inside."

"Whoa," Ron said, letting out a half chuckle. "Okay, there's being a good daughter, but that's rather over the top!"

"I don't know," Harry said, shaking his head. "I think I can picture Ginny doing something like that if it meant saving your dad."

"Maybe," Ron admitted. "On the other hand, would you do that for your Uncle Vernon?"

"Not half likely," Harry said at once.

Ron was about to make a smart remark when he seemed to stop short.

"Hey, wait," Ron said, pointing at Hermione. "You did do that, didn't you, trade yourself so your parents would be all right while you go off to face the beast?"

"I don't know what you mean," Hermione said, blushing, then continued on as though she didn't want to think about it. "As soon as Beauty stepped off the horse, the beast appeared in front of her, but he behaved quite differently with her than with her father. 'You are welcome here,' he said, 'and all that I have is yours.'"

"Well, that's rather nice of him, isn't it," Harry said, hoping Hermione wouldn't be too put off by the memory of having to leave her parents behind to fight Voldemort.

"'But you must never leave this place again so long as you live,'" Hermione finished.

"Oh. Always a catch, isn't there. That's not so nice then," Ron said, grimacing.

"No, it really wasn't," Hermione agreed. "The beast told her she could go anywhere in the castle, though, and that his only request was that she would eat dinner with him in the evenings."

"That's not too bad… well, unless she's on the menu," Ron said.

"Beauty followed the trail of lit torches to her room, then threw herself down on her bed and cried as though her heart would break," Hermione said. "She missed her family terribly, and the knowledge that she would never see them again was almost too much to bear."

"Nah, she'll see them again," Ron said, putting an arm around her. "You wait and see. Usually these things turn out okay for the girl, especially if she's pretty."

Hermione, who a moment ago had looked close to tears, gave Ron a smile.

"Yes, well, let's hope that's the case for significantly less pretty heroines as well," Hermione said.

"You're pretty," Ron blurted, then immediately reddened.

Harry abruptly wished he were anywhere else.

"So, ehm, how'd the first dinner go?" he asked lamely.

"Oh!" Hermione said, sounding as though she'd almost forgotten he was there. "Um, right, yes, not well. The beast had terrifying table manners, ripping the food before him to shreds and making a horrible mess everywhere."

"Sounds like Fred and George," Ron said.

"Or someone else I could mention," Hermione said slyly, moving her gaze to the pile of dirty dishes and then pointedly back to Ron.

"Right, right, it's my turn to do the washing up tonight, point taken," he said, looking sheepish.

"Beauty suffered through the dinner as well as she could, eating little and trying not to stare at the beast. At the end of the meal, the dishes disappeared…"

"House-elves, I'm telling you," Ron said firmly.

"…and then the beast asked Beauty if she would marry him," Hermione finished.

"Okay, now that came out of nowhere," Ron said, looking shocked. "The big monster asked the girl to marry him?"

"Yes," Hermione said, folding her hands.

"Is that legal with your lot? Marrying outside the species?" Ron asked, looking rather sick.

"No!" Hermione yelped in disgust. "Remember, Muggles think only humans can talk."

"And parrots," Harry chimed in.

"But they just mimic sounds!" Hermione said desperately. "What I mean is, since the beast is speaking, Muggles would regard him as being more human-like than animal in that regard."

"Just the same, that's not the done thing," Ron said, still frowning. "You don't just whip a girl away on a Portkeyed horse, incarcerate her, eat like a pig in front of her, and they pipe up with 'Oy! Want to be me missus?'"

Harry snorted very loudly.

"Unsurprisingly, Beauty said no," Hermione said.

"I should jolly well think so," Ron said. "I mean, the bloke's filthy rich and all, but there's a point where even Pansy would turn down a proposal, and marrying a great big talking wolf-bear-buffalo-whatever-it-is has got to be that point."

"Things went on like this for several months. Each day, Beauty would find a lovely new dress in her room, and then she would wander through the gardens or the rooms of the castle. Each day, some new amusement presented itself. One day a room had a little puppet theatre with marionettes that made her laugh, and another time a group of musical instruments began to play on their own with no musicians visible," Hermione said.

"Well, at least she isn't bored," Ron said.

"Still other times a great library appeared, filled to the rafters with books, while at other times there were rooms filled with mirrors and jewelry and dresses and things," Hermione said.

"Bet I can guess which one you'd like best," Harry said with a grin.

"I'll admit, the description of the library did make my mouth water even when I was little. But the strangest thing of all was that Beauty started to have the oddest dreams. Every night, after she ate with the beast, and after he had proposed to her and she had said no, she would go up to her room and fall into a sound sleep, and each night she dreamed of a handsome prince," Hermione said.

"Can't say I blame her," Ron said. "I mean, if you look at the descriptions of all the things in the castle, you notice that aside from the beast she never sees another living soul, or even a dead one. Even when there's food or music or summat, it's brought in by invisible people. Makes sense she'd make up a fantasy fellow in her subconscious."

"True," Hermione said thoughtfully. "It really is very isolating. Plus she never sees even the beast during the day since he's out killing people."

"He's what?" Ron shouted, his jaw dropping open.

"What? Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that bit. The beast roamed through the forest by day, killing unsuspecting travelers and eating them," Hermione said off-handedly.

"When it gets to the point when eating people is so normal that you just gloss over it, you know you've been camping out too long," Ron said, staring at her. "Anything else you forget to mention, like, say, the father murdered his two other daughters or Beauty enjoyed maiming cute little woodland creatures or something?"

"No, of course not!" Hermione said indignantly. "It just doesn't come into the story all that much, so it slipped my mind."

"Okay," Ron said, inching a little away from her.

"Anyway, about the dream prince," Harry said, trying to steer the story back on track before Ron fled the tent out of paranoia.

"Yes, the prince, right. Well, each night, Beauty saw him standing behind metal bars, and he would say, 'Dear Beauty, do not let your eyes deceive you. Set me free," Hermione said, trying to lower her voice into an appropriately seductive tone.

"So the beast is keeping him locked up somewhere?" Ron asked.

"That's what Beauty thought, and she spent her days looking for him, but the rooms seemed to move about in the castle, and they were always changing so that it was impossible for her to find the same place twice," Hermione explained. "She did sometimes find traces of him, though. Once she found a locket with his picture inside it, and remembering that the beast had said anything he had was hers as well, she put it around her neck. Another time she came across a huge portrait of him…"

"Sounds like an ego-maniac," Ron said. "You sure this fellow isn't Malfoy?"

"…but it had been slashed to ribbons by what looked like the beast's claws," Hermione said.

"That's actually pretty disturbing," Ron said. "Was the painting still moving?"

"No, Ron, it was a Muggle painting," Hermione said. "They don't move, remember?"

"Well, what with the self-lighting torches, the Portkey, the Apparating dinner, and the apparent House-elves, I figured moving pictures weren't much of a stretch," Ron said, shrugging.

"Not to mention the Room of Requirement," Harry added.

"What?" both Ron and Hermione chorused.

"The rooms keep changing every time she goes into them, and it gives her something that she likes to distract her," Harry said. "Sounds quite a bit like the Room of Requirement, doesn't it?"

"Actually, it sort of does," Hermione said thoughtfully. "I wonder just how rare that spell is, then."

"I don't know, but it'd come in handy for this place," Harry said. "Just think what would happen if we could treat the tent that way?"

"Yeah," Ron said, a dreamy smile on his face. "A whole room full of nothing but food."

"Yeah," Harry said, looking equally enthralled.

"Yeah," Hermione agreed, her eyes lost in a dream.

The boys turned to stare at her.

"What?" she said. "I'm as hungry as you lot are."

"Just thought you'd still be on about a big library," Ron said.

"I love books, but you can't eat them," Hermione said, "and right now I want kippers, some piping hot mash, and a roast, followed by a chocolate sundae the size of one of Hagrid's Halloween pumpkins."

"Girl after my own heart," Harry said with a laugh, only to see Ron giving him a disapproving look.

"Each night Beauty dreamed of her prince, and he would sigh softly and say that he feared he would remain a prisoner forever unless she would release him," Hermione said.

"Poor prince," Ron said. "Sounds like he's on detention with Snape forever."

"Could you just not mention his name?" Harry said irritably.

"Sorry," Ron said, ducking his head in embarrassment. "Just with all the Hogwarts imagery and the like, if anyone would be locking people up, especially someone really unattractive, well, it's pretty easy to picture the beast as… the Other You Know Who."

"We don't have to take it quite that far," Harry said. "It's not like saying Vol…"

"Just don't!" Ron stopped him, making the others jump with his sudden shouting. "Sorry, just… I still don't like the name. I won't mention old hook-nose, and you won't mention old no-nose, agreed?"

"Agreed," Harry said, though personally he still thought not using Voldemort's name was ridiculous.

"This went on for many months," Hermione continued, "each day following the same pattern. Slowly, Beauty realized the beast didn't intend to harm her, and she even became rather fond of him, but still she was unhappy. Finally, one night, when she was at the dinner table with the beast, Beauty began to cry."

"Well, yeah, what with him spattering food all over the place," Ron said. "It can't really make for an uplifting dining experience."

"The beast stopped tearing his food and looked at her, then said in a kind tone, 'What is wrong, dearest Beauty?'" Hermione said.

"'Well, let's see,'" Ron said in a falsetto. "'You're keeping me prisoner, I haven't seen another human being in months, a big hairy monster keeps trying to marry me, I'm having dreams about a fit bit of a prince that I can't find, and by the way, your table manners are simply appalling! Aside from all that, I'm ginger peachy!'"

Ron threw in batting his eyelashes wildly, and Harry and Hermione both giggled.

"Not quite," Hermione said. "Instead, Beauty said that she missed her father and sisters so much that she might die of homesickness."

"Poor kid," Ron said. "I get how she feels. Still, rotten as it is being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with just the three of us, it'd be a lot worse if I were all alone like her."

"Yeah, it could definitely be worse," Harry said, looking at his two friends and actually feeling a moment of gratitude.

"The beast looked at her with pity and said, 'Then I shall let you go home to visit your family, but you must return in two months. If you do not, I shall surely die,'" the beast said.

"Hey, that's pretty decent of him," Ron said, smiling.

"While it does border on Stockholm Syndrome, yes, the point is he doesn't really want to harm her," Hermione said. "The beast told her to pack whatever she liked from the castle to give to her family and put it in trunks, so she filled them with dresses and jewels, gold coins and all sorts of marvelous treasures, and no matter how much she put into the trunks, they never overflowed."

"Like your beaded bag," Ron said. "Is that where you got the idea?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, looking startled. "I suppose it might have been lying about in my subconscious. In any case, when the morning came, the beast gave her a ring and a mirror. He told her that to return to the castle, all she had to do was put on the ring and twist it around her finger, and she would be there. Then he told her to go to sleep, and in the morning she would be home."

"That's convenient," Ron said. "And obviously the ring's another portkey. But what about the mirror?"

"Oh, the mirror was for her to look into to see the beast if ever she had need of him," she said.

"So… like Sirius's two way mirror with Harry," Ron said, sounding more than a little perturbed, then immediately flushing scarlet. "Sorry, Harry. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that one either."

"It's alright," Harry said, quite honestly. "I don't mind thinking of Sirius. Of course I was a stupid prat for not checking that mirror before I ran off into the night to try to save him…"

By now Harry's mood had started to darken, and Hermione pushed on with the story as though to try to bury the thought in the past.

"That night, when Beauty laid down to sleep, she dreamed of her prince once more, but she was shocked to see that he was laying on the ground looking ill and sad," Hermione said. "She asked him, 'Dear prince, what ails thee so?' and he replied, 'Oh, you mean to abandon me, and you shall never return, and I shall die of grief for you, my love!'"

"Her subconscious is really feeling guilty," Ron said. "Also, why do fairy tale people always say thee? It's right annoying, that is."

"Beauty assured him that she would keep her promise to the beast, and that she really didn't want any harm to come to him, but the prince still looked mournful. All at once, Beauty opened her eyes and found herself sleeping on her little bed in her father's cottage in the forest," Hermione said, completely ignoring Ron's with practiced skill.

"I wish I were in my own bed, too," Ron said. "Be nice to just wake up there tomorrow."

"The father was overjoyed to see Beauty again, and her sisters seemed delighted as well, especially when they saw all the presents Beauty had for them. There was so much gold they were able to move back into town to a fine house, and Beauty and her sisters went to balls and on picnics and to wealthy people's homes again, but the sisters often seemed to treat Beauty as though she were in the way since they had gotten quite used to life without her in her absence," Hermione said.

"Well, that's gratitude for you," Ron said, frowning indignantly. "She makes them all rich again, and they don't even say thank you, just push her to the side. What a couple of right old hags."

"They obviously aren't very nice," Hermione agreed. "However, Beauty loved being with her father, and she told him all about the Beast, who had been kind and generous to her, and about her dreams of the prince, which had stopped since she left the castle. She asked her father what he thought the prince meant about freeing him, and the father said he wondered if the prince wouldn't be freed if Beauty agreed to marry the beast."

"That's a pretty wide leap of logic," Harry said.

"Yeah, all you've got to do to get the love of your life is marry somebody else, specifically this wooly mammoth over here," Ron said. "The father may have gone a bit round the bend from all the forest-based poverty."

"Beauty said over and over that she must return to the beast the next day, but always her sisters and father would beg her to spend one more day with them, and she would, forgetting about the time," Hermione said.

"Uh-oh," Ron said. "If this story's like that Ashyweeper one, forgetting about the time has serious consequences."

"Indeed," Hermione said, beaming at Ron like he'd said something especially clever. "One day, she came across the magic mirror, and it immediately showed her the beast, but he was lying still on the grass in the garden, just where the prince had been in her dream, and he wasn't moving."

"That's what you get for not keeping up with the calendar," Ron said sagely.

"She let two whole months go by without once checking on him?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow. "That seems pretty cold."

"Well, she was excited to be with her family, and I never said she was very bright," Hermione said. "At once, she twisted the ring around her finger, and she was immediately standing next to the beast in his garden, but all the roses were withering. She knelt beside him, terrified that he might be dead because of her long absence, and she found that he wasn't moving, nor breathing, nor showing any sign of life."

"Blimey, now that's just plain sad," Ron said. "Not only that, but how's that little slip of a thing going to bury that hulking monster?"

"House-elves," Harry reminded him.

"Oh yeah," Ron said. "I suppose they'd do it well enough, if she even knows they're there."

Through this exchange, Hermione half-closed her eyes as though she was pondering a difficult Arithmancy problem.

"Supposing there are House-elves in the beast's home, and supposing he did die, what would happen to them?" Hermione asked.

"Dunno," Ron said with a shrug. "I suppose they'd go to whoever inherits the house."

"Yeah, like Kreacher," Harry said.

"But supposing there wasn't any next of kin," Hermione said, still squinting into the middle distance. "What would happen then?"

"Hermione," Ron said, patting her hand, "as much as it might be really tempting to kill all the Malfoys and anyone tangentially related to them, I'm pretty sure there has to be a better way to free them that."

"I wasn't contemplating murder!" she said, slapping his hand away. "It's just an interesting psychological and legal question."

"Whatever lets you sleep well at night," he said, sitting back against the old chair. "So, the beast is dead. Now what?"

"I didn't say the beast was dead," Hermione said crossly. "I said he wasn't breathing or moving or showing any sign of life."

"That would mean he's dead," Ron pointed out.

"Did you forget about Sleeping Beauty and Snow White already?" Hermione asked.

"Oh yeah," he said, smiling a little. "So maybe he's not totally dead but just down with a mild case of nearly dead."

Hermione rubbed her hand over her face, apparently mentally exhausted, but nodded.

"That's the general idea, Ronald," she said. "Beauty ran to a nearby fountain, filled her hands with water, and sprinkled on the beast's face, and he began to stir."

"So he was faking it," Ron said, nodding in satisfaction.

"No, he wasn't faking it!" Hermione said, and Harry noted that she was pretty close to snapping again. "He was honestly distraught by her absence and had fainted from missing her so!"

"Right," Ron said, winking at Harry and mouthing the words "faking it" again.

"You realize I'm right here and can see everything you're doing," Hermione said, folding her arms and giving him a freezing glare.

"Oh, right," Ron said. "So, what happened when the not-dead beast was suddenly much more obviously not dead?"

"Beauty said, 'Oh, dear beast, I didn't know how much I loved you until I thought you were dead!' and he replied that she should go back in the castle and he would join her for dinner as he usually did," Hermione said.

"Fast recovery there," Ron said. "Looks like his little ruse worked pretty well."

Hermione gave him a sour look but continued, "That night, after dinner, the beast again asked Beauty if she would marry him, but this time she answered, 'Yes, dear beast.'"

Ron looked like he had something to say again, but for once he just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"I reckon I'd best just hold my tongue," Ron said, and Harry inwardly applauded. "Seriously, what can you say to that one? So Beauty married the beast and they had a bunch of furry sprogs?"

"No," Hermione said. "Beauty agreeing to marry the beast broke the enchantment over him, and suddenly he turned into the prince from her dreams."

"So… he's the prince?" Ron said.

"That's what I just said," Hermione answered. "The whole time, the prince was trying to get her to say yes to the beast's proposal of marriage. You see, as a human the beast had been very vain and arrogant, and as punishment a fairy had turned him into a beast until someone would love him in spite of his appearance rather than because of it, and of course he had been forbidden to speak of the spell or else he would stay a beast forever."

Harry looked at Ron, who seemed to be mulling the whole thing over.

"Okay," Ron said. "That's plausible. Your average fairy would think that was a good bit of fun."

"So the prince and Beauty were married, with her father and sisters in attendance, and a great cloud of fireflies spelled out in the sky 'Long live the prince and his bride!'" Hermione said, looking a bit starry eyed.

"Nice bit of Charms work there," Ron said. "So what happened to the evil sisters, since something always does seem to happen to them in these things?"

"In some versions, nothing," Hermione said. "They all simply live happily ever after, but in others the fairy returns and changes the sisters into two statues who guard the entrance to the castle garden until they finally realize their own faults, but the fairy says she doesn't think that's ever likely to happen."

"Those statues," Ron said slowly, "they wouldn't have happened to be of two great big gargoyles on either side of the gate, now would they?"

"Well, since the fairy did turn the beast into something hideous, it wouldn't be out of character for her to do the same thing again," Hermione reasoned. "Why?"

"Because when we get back to Hogwarts someday, I'm going to have a little conversation with the statues at the gate," Ron said. "A thousand years is a bit long to be turned into stone, even for someone who crossed a fairy."

"I…," Hermione said as though to dismiss the idea, then shrugged. "Why not? It certainly wouldn't be the strangest thing ever to happen at Hogwarts."

"No, that'd be if Snape turned out to be a… prince… in… disguise," Harry said, slowly stopping as he realized that's exactly what he had turned out to be.

"Yeah, but I doubt he's going to be transformed by love in the end," Ron said. "There's only just so far these parallels go."

Harry grunted his agreement, and quiet reigned in the tent for the moment. He had to admit, Hermione's story had been far from boring, but on a cold night, as the wind raged in the trees above, it had made him more than a little homesick for Hogwarts and the people there. When all this was over, the Horcruxes destroyed and the inevitable battle won, he hoped he'd be able to see its towers again.


	3. The Little MereallyDeeplyDisturbing

Author: Meltha

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Yes, thank you.

Spoilers: Through book 7.

Distribution: The Blackberry Patch and . If you're interested, please let me know.

Summary: Hermione tells the boys the tale of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Seamaid."

Author's Note: Sorry this took so long.

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.

The Little Mer-(eally-Deeply-Disturbing)-maid

It was raining for the fifth day in a row, and the tent was starting to get soggy. It didn't even help that they kept switching locations from day to day. All of England, Wales, and Scotland seemed to be drowning in rain. This night, their temporary home was perched precariously on a cliff above the sea, and the sound of the waves was mixing with the lightning and thunder. No matter how many times a day Hermione muttered "Impervious," at the leaking ceiling, a new drip was bound to pop up as soon as the old one was plugged. Her mood wasn't helped much by the fact the humidity was slowly turning her hair into a rather sizable afro, something Ron had made a habit of pointing out at least three times already that day. Harry was staring at the locket again, wondering exactly what was inside it and whether Norbert might be able to melt it if he could manage to track him down in Romania.

"Is there any fish left?" Ron asked, looking up from Hermione's Arithmancy textbook, a sure sign he was now as bored as humanly possible.

"No," Hermione said. "We were lucky to be able to summon that one, and I don't think it's a good idea to try again in the middle of this storm."

Ron grimaced, then threw the book on the pillow beside him.

"Story," he said without further preamble.

Hermione looked at him with disbelief.

"Pigsfeet," she said. "Lint. Zebra. Tapestry. Mandolin."

Ron looked at her as though she'd gone mad.

"What? If you want to try using a single word command as a request for me to tell you another fairy tale, I should have the right to reply in an equally disjointed and rude way," Hermione said, rummaging through her little beaded bag, "particularly when you just came dangerously close to abusing one of my books."

"She's got you there, mate," Harry said, shrugging. "She still hasn't forgiven me for almost getting jam on her copy of _Traveling with Trolls_."

"You've still got that thing?" Ron said, mouth agape.

"My reading matter is my own business, I think," Hermione said, finally retrieving a hair tie from the bottom of her apparently cavernous bag. "So shall we try this again?"

"Hermione," Ron said, batting his eyelashes, "would you please do us the honor of telling us another one of your fabulously bizarre and completely mental fairy tales that should put all Muggle children in therapy for the rest of their lives?"

Hermione sighed, but Harry was glad to see she looked amused.

"Fine," Hermione said, then closed her eyes for a moment, looking as though she were trying to decide on the next tale. "Considering our location, let's have the story of 'The Little Seamaid.'"

"What's a seamaid?" Ron asked.

"A mermaid," Hermione said, and Harry could tell she was already starting to regret agreeing to yet another round of this. Frankly, that was usually what he enjoyed best about the evening's entertainment.

"So why don't they just call her a mermaid then?" Ron asked.

"I don't know. Some versions do call her the little mermaid instead, but the closest translation from the original Danish is actually seamaid," Hermione said.

"It's about a breakfast roll?" Ron said, looking completely confused.

"The Danish_ language_," Hermione said, and Harry suspected she was already biting her tongue to keep from screaming. "The story was written by a man named Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark."

"Oh," Ron said, his features downcast. "I was rather hoping this one was about food again. So she's a seamaid. Hey, what do they call the men, then?" he asked, suddenly looking sly.

"I suppose they'd be called…" but Hermione stopped cold in her tracks and gave him a withering glare. "Mermen. Mermaids and mermen. Alright then?"

"Fine," Ron said, looking innocent but throwing a wicked look at Harry the moment Hermione's gaze was elsewhere.

"Muggles know about mermaids?" Harry asked, desperate to get the conversation back on a level keel.

"A bit, but not much of what they know is right, and it's changed over the years," Hermione said. "They think mermaids are beautiful women that have a fishtail from the waist down. In the older stories they sang sailors to their deaths during storms like this one."

"So kind of like the mermaid in the Prefects' bathroom," Harry said, remembering the rather flirty painting.

"Yes," Hermione said. "Annoying, isn't she?"

"Completely," Ron said, but Harry had heard Ron go on about her charms often enough in the year he'd been a prefect that he was completely sure that 'annoying' wasn't in the list of the top fifty adjectives he would have used to describe her. "Do go on."

"Well, once upon…"

"…a time," Ron said, motioning for her to continue.

"Yes, Ronald," she said, and Harry began to worry that the lines in her forehead might become permanent. "In the sea there lived a great sea-king and his seven daughters, the princesses of the sea, along with their grandmother. Each was as lovely as could be, but the youngest one was the most beautiful of all."

"Seven kids," Ron said, looking at Harry. "Nice not to be the only one to know what it feels like to fight for the loo in the morning."

"They lived in a gigantic palace, Ron," Hermione said. "I doubt that was much of an issue."

"Maybe," Ron said, "but then again, with seven daughters and a grandmother, I'm betting the poor dad still has to make a reservation even in his own palace."

Hermione rolled her eyes but continued on.

"The seven daughters were raised by their grandmother to be elegant and beautiful, and she told them stories of the world above, the strange animals that lived there and the tall buildings, and flowers and trees and birds. The princesses were not allowed to go above the water until their fifteenth birthday, and because they were kept in suspense, they thought and dreamed a good deal about the strange world above," Hermione said.

"Wait, there's seven daughters, and none of them are fifteen yet," Ron said, working a sum on his hands. "Were any of them twins?"

"No," Hermione said. "Why?"

"Just, okay, if each one of them is under fifteen, and there's seven of them, then the youngest one would have to be what, eight or so years old?" Ron said.

Hermione squinted at the tent roof, obviously doing the math in her head.

"While highly unlikely, yes, the maximum age would be about eight years old," Hermione said.

"So, at eight the kid is already the most beautiful of them all?" Ron asked. "There's just something deeply wrong with that."

"It's a fairy tale thing, Ron," Hermione said, sighing. "Remember, Snow White was almost as lovely as the queen when she was just a child too."

"None of these girls ever goes through an awkward stage with spots and gangly legs?" Ron asked. "Doesn't really seem fair."

"A mermaid wouldn't exactly be likely to have gangly legs. Besides, they're magical princesses, Ronald," Hermione said. "Please, just go with it, alright?"

"Fine, but it's still weird," Ron said, turning to Harry. "I'm betting even Madam Rosmerta was a little homely at some point, though."

"Most likely," Hermione said, seeming almost to smile for a moment, then continuing on. "When the eldest sister had her chance to go to the world above, she came down again and told her little sisters all about the land and the strange places there, and each sister pined in turn to see all the amazing things above the sea."

"Pined?" Ron said.

"It means really wanted to," Hermione said.

"I know what it means, but still, 'pined'? You're laying the old timey talk on a little thick there, aren't you?" Ron said.

"It's a perfectly acceptable English word," Hermione said, looking rather prim.

"Okay, but the moment you start using lemman or mickle or something, I'm out of here, rain or no," Ron said, nodding in determination.

"Since when do you know the fifteenth century term for sweetheart?" Hermione said, looking genuinely surprised.

"Since I caught Nick writing the Fat Lady a sonnet last Valentine's Day," Ron said, shuddering. "Some things just shouldn't be imagined."

"Fine. Each of the sisters waited in turn for their birthdays, and each of them saw something different: a great thunderstorm or icebergs floating among ships or children bathing at the beach or what have you, but the littlest mermaid, who had the longest to wait, was the one who wanted most of all to go above," Hermione said.

"Not much fun being the youngest," Ron said. "Everything winds up being a hand-me-down, and you never do get to be the first to do much of anything."

"You're not the youngest in your family," Harry pointed out. "That's Ginny."

"I know, but it's different since she's the only girl in I don't know how many generations," Ron said. "It's not like Dad made her wear Percy's old trainers."

Personally, Harry thought Ginny would have looked wonderful even in a beat up pair of Percy's old shoes, but he decided to keep mum on that topic.

"Finally, the youngest sister turned fifteen, and her grandmother dressed her regally since she was now a grown up princess," Hermione said.

"She was grown up at fifteen?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Hermione said. "In Muggle culture back in olden times, people were sometimes married off quite young since they didn't live very long. In Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_, Juliet is only thirteen and her parents arrange a marriage for her, with her mother mentioning she got married when she was only twelve."

"Uh… huh," Ron said. "So this Shakespeare chap has been dead a long time, right?"

"Yes," Hermione said, "almost four hundred years."

"Good. Sounds like a right perv," Ron said, shaking his head. "Anyway, go on. How'd Gran dress up—wait, what's her name?"

"She doesn't have one," Hermione said. "When Disney made the movie years later, they called her Ariel."

"Like Prospero's servant spirit?" Ron said. "Wasn't Ariel a boy?"

"Well, that's left kind of vague in _The Tempest_," Hermione said. "Wait, how do you know about that play? I thought you didn't know anything about Shakespeare."

"I don't," Ron said. "Prospero's on a Chocolate Frog card."

"Oh," Hermione said. "Well, that does explain it, though now I'm wondering how Shakespeare found out about a real wizard. It could even be possible that _Midsummer Night's Dream_ is based on reality, with Titania and Oberon being based on actual fairies from the time period or historical conglomerations of multiple powerful beings. Perhaps Puck might actually be an archetype from one of the lesser-known pixie species. But if Shakespeare did have knowledge of actual wizarding practices, it sheds a different light on his treatment of the three witches in, um, the Scottish play."

Ron had been nearly on the point of napping again when he noticed Hermione's hesitation.

"The Scottish play?" Ron asked. "That's what he named it? Bit of a boring title."

"No," Hermione said carefully. "It's just that many Muggles consider it bad luck to say the name of that play unless they're actually performing it. I don't like to be superstitious, but it does seem like we can't be too careful at the moment."

"They won't say the name?" Harry said, his interest suddenly peaked. "That seems awfully familiar. It's almost like Vol…"

"Will you just not say that!" Ron yelped, slapping a cushion over Harry's mouth. "It makes me nervous."

"Sorry," Harry's muffled voice said through the pillow.

"Good," Ron said, drawing his attention back to Hermione. "So we'll skip the Scottish play. This Shakespeare sounds like a bit of a weirdo."

"He also wrote a play called _The Winter's Tale_ with a character named Hermione in it," she said with a wry expression. "She's where my parents got my name from."

"Oh," Ron said, glancing at Harry. "Well, that explains it, I suppose."

"Explains what?" Hermione said.

"Well, your name's a bit unusual, yeah?" Ron said, and Harry silently sent mental pleadings for him to shut it before Hermione's temper blew a completely unrepairable hole in the tent.

"You have a sister named Ginevra, and we go to school with Luna, Astoria, Cho, and Draco, and we know a Filius, Mundungus, Daedalus, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Lucius, and Walpurga," Hermione said, almost visibly shaking.

"Well, yeah, those are normal names," Ron said. "Your name's odd."

Harry quickly interposed himself between the two of them before Ron tempted her towards justifiable murder.

"So how did the grandmother dress up the youngest mermaid?" Harry asked, desperately hoping the ploy would work.

Hermione snapped her head towards him, her eyes actually sparking in the dim light of the tent, while Ron looked like he might have finally figured out he had made a serious tactical error, especially since they were camped so close to a cliff.

"New seashells?" Ron said tentatively with a weak smile.

Hermione took a deep, steadying breath, then shook her shoulders.

"Actually, yes," she said, apparently having decided to let the whole thing go via one of the most massive acts of will power Harry had witnessed thus far. "She let eight oysters attach themselves to the mermaid's tail as decoration, and the girl said that it hurt, but the grandmother said that beauty must suffer pain."

"Yow," Ron said. "How pretty can she be if she's wandering around in agony because the equivalent of eight _Monster Book of Monsters_ is biting into her fin?"

"Good point, but it's practically the same thing as wearing high heels," Hermione said.

"They hurt that much?" Ron asked, actually appearing interested.

"Imagine shoving your feet into a pair of oboes and then trying to walk on tiptoe all night," Hermione said.

"Okay," Ron said, wincing. "I suddenly feel extra sorry for Ashyweeper and her glass shoes."

"So the youngest mermaid was allowed at long last to rise to the surface of the ocean and see the human world for the first time," Hermione said. "When she first poked her head through the waves, she could see a great ship with many lights blazing on its deck. It was growing dark…"

"Wait, dark?" Ron cut in. "How long did it take Grandma to shove eight oysters on her grand-kid's fin anyway? She wasted the whole day!"

Hermione looked strained, but continued on gamely, "There was a wonderful fireworks display going on, and she was stunned by the beauty of the brightly colored flowers in the air drifting towards their reflections in the water."

"Oh, so it's a dramatic time shift," Ron said, nodding knowledgably. "I wasn't supposed to notice the gap in events because it was more important for the pretty scenery to come in. And it is pretty. Fireworks on the water… kind of reminds me of the Quidditch World Cup."

"Yeah," Harry chimed in, remembering the day fondly. "The Bulgarians and Irish had some really cool stuff in the air that night."

"Yeah," Ron said, looking excited. "Do you remember the Omnioculars we bought? I used them to watch someone in the third row pick his nose over and over again."

"I tell them the lead up to the most romantic part of the whole bloody story and he starts talking about—that," Hermione muttered to herself. "There is absolutely no hope at all, none."

"Hmm?" Ron said, seeming to remember she was there. "What did you say?"

"Not a thing," Hermione said. "At any rate, during all of this, the little mermaid looked at a young boy who stood on the deck watching the fireworks. He was dressed very regally, and she assumed he must be a prince. She couldn't help thinking he was extremely handsome."

"Uh-oh," Ron said, looking at Harry. "I'm sensing Cupid's twanging bow."

"Quite," Hermione said. "The little mermaid fell head over heels in love at first sight with the young prince, but suddenly a vicious storm came up, and before she knew it, the prince's ship was cracking to pieces in the high waves."

"Shoddy workmanship, that," Ron said, shaking his head. "Boats really should stay afloat. It's sort of the definition of the thing, yeah?"

"Well, regardless of the skills of the boat wrights who built the ship, she split to pieces," Hermione said.

"Who did?" Ron asked, looking alarmed.

"The ship," Hermione said, staring at him as though he'd grown another head.

"But you said 'she split,'" Ron pointed out. "Who's she?"

"Muggles use the feminine pronoun to refer to ships sometimes, as well as automobiles, planes, spaceships, motorbikes, that sort of thing," Hermione said.

Ron looked at Harry, sensing he was treading dangerous waters.

"Ehm, why is the boat a girl?" he asked.

"No idea," Harry said. "Hermione?"

"I suppose it could have to do with the innate possessiveness associated with owning a member of the female sex as well as a certain fondness for the object and a desire to personify something that essentially is responsible for the safety and welfare of those riding it," Hermione said, squinting one eye shut and staring towards the roof of the tent. "I'm rather surprised at myself for falling into the idiom without questioning it. It's obviously sexist but perhaps not overtly misogynistic."

"Oh, well that's good then," Ron said, and Harry could tell he was making a desperate stab in the dark. When Hermione didn't immediately answer but remained rapt in her own bemusement, he quickly shifted gears and said, "I mean, it's bad and awful and terrible and repressive and shockingly… and stuff."

Hermione shook her head as though to clear it, then gave him an odd look.

"Yes," she said, though Harry couldn't tell which end of Ron's thoughts she was agreeing with. "In any case, the ship went to the bottom of the sea, leaving bits of flotsam and jetsam dotting the murky waters along with one little mermaid who was looking about in vain for the prince."

"That's nice," Ron said, frowning. "Just ignore all the other blokes who are drowning because she's got to find Prince I-Don't-Know-His-Name-But-He's-Fit-So-I-Looooove-Him."

"Well, she's a mermaid," Hermione said, shrugging. "Normally she and her sisters would be luring sailors to their deaths out of habit, so it's at least a step in the right direction."

"Okay, I guess that's progress," Ron said, swallowing hard.

Personally, Harry suddenly found that stained glass window in the Prefects bathroom a lot less alluring.

"So did the mermaid find him before he kicked off?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione said, "she pulled the prince from the wreckage. He was unconscious, and she carefully kept his head above water all through the night, watching over him and kissing his brow."

Ron grimaced.

"Nice that she kept him from drowning to death, but couldn't she have just refrained from, you know, molesting him?" he said.

"She's more than a little forward, yes," Hermione said. "Reminds me a little of Romilda Vane"

"Reminds me more of Colin Creevey's brother and the Giant Squid in his first year," Harry said. "Remember when he fell out of the boat crossing the lake and it saved him?"

"Yeah," Ron said, looking nostalgic. "I miss old Squiddy. Hope You-Know-Who doesn't have a thing against oversized sealife."

"In any case, when dawn broke, she was still pillowing his head on her breast as she pushed them towards land," Hermione said.

Harry started to cough rather forcefully at that particular image, but oddly Ron appeared to be trying to figure something out.

"Nope," he finally admitted. "I can't suss out the anatomy on that one, even with a fishtail."

"Just go with it," Hermione said. "At long last they reached a beach with a lovely little church and convent, the bells just pealing to welcome the dawn, and she carefully laid him on the beach, then hid herself near the water's edge by cloaking her head in sea foam, waiting to see who would come to him and if he would wake."

"Sea foam as camouflage," Harry said. "Okay, I can see that."

"Until a high wind comes up anyway," Ron said. "So who found him?"

"A group of girls processing from morning services to the school at the convent were walking along the edge of the beach, and one, the most beautiful of them, noticed the prince lying on the sand. She called for help and then knelt beside him, and at once he opened his eyes and began to show signs of life," Hermione said.

"So he'll be okay," Ron said. "Well, that's nice anyway. The mermaid saved his life."

"Actually, the prince said the girl had saved his life," Hermione said.

"What, by not tripping over him?" he said.

Hermione shrugged and nodded.

"Muggles are weird," Ron said to Harry. "So what'd the seamaid, mermaid, mersea, whatever, do?"

"Well, she went back to her father's palace below the sea, but she was heartbroken. She began spending all her time in her garden, for she had found a life-size statue of the prince that had fallen from the wrecked ship, and she put it beneath a great tree of coral at the very center. She spent hours wrapped around the statue, longing for him," Hermione said.

"This girl needs to get a life," Ron said.

"Yeah," Harry said. "She's starting to sound a little creepy."

"There's a limit," Ron agreed. "I mean, when you had a thing for Cho in fifth year, you didn't actually try to make out with her picture or something."

"No," Harry said, "but I've caught you sneaking a goodnight kiss to your picture of Cindy Crawford.

Harry was at once pummeled with a sofa cushion, and Ron blushed so brightly his freckles disappeared entirely into the redness.

"The little mermaid refused to tell anyone what was bothering her, but she did speak to her grandmother, asking her about the lands above the water," Hermione said.

"The same one that stuck painful shellfish on her tail?" Ron asked.

"The very same," Hermione said.

"Somehow I don't think that's going to end well," he said.

"'Grandmother,' she asked," and here Hermione spoke in her usual high falsetto she reserved for female fairy tale characters, "'Do humans ever die like we do?'"

"Argh! That's it, the prince needs a restraining order pronto!" Ron said, looking honestly terrified. "Of all the things she can ask, that's her number one pressing question?"

"Do I even want to know why she's asking that?" Harry said, wondering if he had turned as green as his eyes.

"Oh, it just gets better at this point," Hermione said, and Harry noted she was actually enjoying this a bit. "The grandmother explained that yes, people died, but they didn't live as long as merpeople do, who all live to be a hundred years old."

"Okay, that's wrong on a bunch of counts," Ron said. "First off, Dumbledore was human and lived to be over 150, so we've got them beat there."

"Yes, but that's wizards," Hermione said. "Muggles don't usually make it to one hundred, and none of them ever live that long."

"Fine, Muggles are in delicate health, but every single merperson just collapses in a heap on their hundredth birthday?" Ron said.

"According to the grandmother in the story, yes," Hermione said.

"Okay, that's deeply depressing, but then what happened to the little seamaid's mum?" Ron said, folding his arms in satisfaction as though he'd found a flaw in one of Percy's cauldron-bottom reports.

"I… I don't know," said Hermione, honestly surprised. "She's obviously dead in the story, but if the seamaid's grandmother is still alive, her mother should be as well."

"Well spotted, Ron," Harry said, giving him a bow in respect.

"Thank you," he said, smiling smugly.

Hermione, meanwhile, was chewing on her lip and staring into space.

"Ehm, Hermione?" Ron asked, waving a hand in front of her face. "You still in there?"

"Andersen never stipulates whether the grandmother is paternal or maternal," she said as though she were talking to herself. "If she's the paternal grandmother, the father is still alive, so that would be acceptable, though it would suggest the king married a seamaid significantly older than he was, actually older than his own mother. However, it's never stated whether or not the merpeople age, except, no, wait, the grandmother is definitely described as having gray hair. Now, if she's the maternal grandmother, then her daughter would have predeceased her, meaning the mermaid's mother couldn't have reached one hundred. If so, that means that merpeople live a century unless there's an accident or violence of some kind, raising the specter of foul play."

Harry and Ron looked at each other. If they didn't intervene, this could go on indefinitely.

"Tuna boat," Ron said.

"Huh?" Hermione said, snapping back.

"She got caught in one of those illegal tuna nets that nab dolphins," Ron said.

"That's terrible! I don't want the little seamaid's mother to have died in a tuna net!" Hermione said, looking traumatized.

"Okay, okay, no tuna net!" Ron backpedaled, looking to Harry for help.

"Let's just assume that something happened that the story didn't cover and leave it at that," Harry said.

"Fine," Hermione said, giving a little shudder.

Harry was pretty sure that when this whole Horcrux mess was over, she was going to start a companion group to SPEW that focused on proper tuna harvesting techniques.

"So, merpeople usually live to a hundred years and then kick off," Ron said helpfully. "Go on."

"Right," Hermione said, pulling herself together. "The grandmother went on to say that although humans lived shorter lives, they had immortal souls capable of going to heaven when they died, but merpeople, though they lived longer, just turned to foam on the sea when they died and didn't have a soul."

Ron blinked.

"Well, that's specist of old Andersen," Ron said indignantly. "Why does he assume the only sentient beings on the planet with souls are humans?"

Harry didn't say much, but he thought of Sirius and Dumbledore, Mad-Eye and Cedric, his mum and dad, and he hoped Andersen was right on at least half of that.

"Oh, that's only part of it," Hermione said. "The grandmother explained that there was a way for a mermaid to earn a soul."

"Well, that's peachy," Ron said. "What's that?"

"If a mermaid could make a human man fall in love with her and married him, when the priest joined their hands, her husband would give her a soul while retaining his own," Hermione said.

"Oh, come off it!" Ron said. "Seriously? If she marries some bloke she gets a soul out of the bargain?"

"It's an anti-Horcrux," Harry said in a flash of realization. "The husband splits his soul without committing a murder, and that's why it stays whole instead of being damaged."

Hermione and Ron looked at one another in shock.

"You're right," Hermione said, her voice shaky. "It really does sound like that, doesn't it? I wonder how Andersen knew about dark magic?"

"Creepy," Ron said, shuddering. "And here I was thinking the weirdest part of all this was that the story was really, deeply, scarily sexist and treated women like incomplete moral beings without the guidance of a supposedly superior male proprietor."

Harry's and Hermione's eyes nearly bugged out of their heads.

"What?" Ron said. "You were thinking it too."

"Yes," Hermione said carefully, "I was. Almost verbatim. I just didn't think you were."

Ron smiled beatifically and motioned for her to go on with the story.

"In any case, after the little mermaid's conversation with the grandmother, one of her sisters eventually realized something was bothering her," Hermione said.

"Big clue there was little sis trying to jump a hunk of granite," Ron mumbled out of the corner of his mouth to Harry.

"Finally she confided in one of her sisters, and that sister told the other five, and then the sisters told their most intimate friends who told only their very closest acquaintances," Hermione said.

"And by that time, the secret had warped so much in the telling that everyone thought kid sister had eloped with Stubby Boardman and was plotting to take over Bulgaria," Ron said.

"Considering the rumour mill at Hogwarts, that wouldn't be unlikely, but as it happened one of the other mermaids knew where the prince lived, in a castle built right beside the sea, and the little mermaid followed her there to see what had become of the prince," Hermione explained.

"I suppose dropping in once to see if the fellow's all right after that many hours unconscious is fairly reasonable," Ron said. "Maybe actually introducing herself."

"Every night she swam up the canal to the castle, where the prince's bedroom had a balcony over the water, and she would rise out of the ocean, her arms raised beseechingly, hoping to catch the smallest glimpse of him from the shadows," Hermione said.

"And we're right back in the land of Deeply Disturbing," Harry said. "She peeps in his window? Isn't that illegal?"

"Really, it's not all that different from Romeo standing under Juliet's balcony window and eavesdropping on her," Hermione said.

"Yeah, but he only did that the one time, not every night, and he was honest about it and owned up to the fact he was there after a bit," Ron said. "Besides, I always sort of suspected she knew he was there anyway. Who wanders onto a balcony and starts blithering to no one about that really cute boy she just met and how much she hopes he asks her out unless she thinks he's standing there hiding in the bushes?"

Hermione blinked. Harry blinked.

"What?" Ron asked.

"I thought you said earlier you didn't know anything about Shakespeare?" Harry asked in complete disbelief.

"Okay, so I read that one once," Ron admitted sheepishly.

"Closely enough to have come up with staging directions and motivations for the sequence of dialogue in the balcony scene?" Hermione said, narrowing her eyes.

"I got bored one day when we were shut in during that freak snowstorm in Cornwall three weeks ago, grabbed a book out of your beaded bag and started reading," Ron said.

"You brought Shakespeare on a Horcrux hunt?" Harry said, refocusing his look of bewilderment on Hermione. "What for?"

"It's Shakespeare," Hermione said, looking unruffled. "He's appropriate for any situation."

"So, anyway, the little stalkermaid is floating about, staring in the prince's bedroom window at night and generally behaving like she's gone right round the twist," Ron said, obviously trying to move on from his perusal of the romances of the bard. "Then what?"

"Her father, the king of the merpeople, threw a party," Hermione said.

"And she plucked up the courage to ask the prince?" Ron said, brightening.

"No," Hermione said. "Besides, how would he go to a party at the bottom of the ocean?"

"Bubblehead charm?" Harry suggested. "Gillyweed?"

"Partial human transformation into a really stupid looking shark/man?" Ron mumbled almost inaudibly.

"All right, so there are ways," Hermione huffed, "but not if you're a Muggle."

"Scuba diving gear?" Harry said.

"Fine! So there are ways even if you _are_ a Muggle, but not in the 1700s or whenever this is bloody well supposed to have happened!" Hermione all but screamed, then paused. "Well, aside from diving bells, but they wouldn't solve the problem of the massive water pressure at that depth. In any case, no, she did not ask the prince to the ball!"

"Fine," Ron said. "She was too scared to ask him. Whatever."

"Yes, because it's so easy to ask the person you fancy to go to a ball," Harry said, sarcasm in his tone.

"Well, you eventually got up the nerve," Ron said as though he were trying to make Harry feel better.

"Not him, you idiot," Hermione said, snorting. "I believe he meant you."

"I… what?" Ron said, suddenly looking cornered.

"Wasn't it Harry who ended up getting Parvati to ask Padma to go to the Yule Ball with you?" Hermione said. "If he hadn't, you'd have been stuck up in Gryffindor Tower alone, what was the phrase you used in regards to me, 'crying your eyes out'?"

"Oh," Ron said, looking as though somehow he'd been let off the hook. "Well, if you want to get technical about it, yeah, though I don't think I'd be doing much weeping."

"So the little mermaid was called upon to sing at the ball, and she was judged to have the most beautiful voice of all the merfolk, who of course had voices far lovelier than any heard on land," Hermione said.

"So, out of desperation for her one true love, the little mermaid wins a singing competition?" Harry said.

"That's odd," Ron said, smiling, "but at least it's healthy. She went out and got some other interests to take her mind off things."

"Then later than night she ran away from home to make a deal with the Sea Witch so she could win the prince's love," Hermione said.

"So not so much with the outside interests then," Ron said. "I've got to hand it to the kid on one thing, though. She's tenacious."

"The Sea Witch lived on the other side of a horrible collection of underwater polyps that tried to grab anything that went past, strangling them to death, so the little mermaid decided the best plan was to—"

"Go home," Ron cut in.

"Probably, but she decided to propel herself through the field as quickly as possible, hoping they wouldn't grab her. She rocketed forward with all her strength, and the polyps reached out their horrid tentacles towards her, but they couldn't catch her. She saw all sorts of things they were holding, skeletons of fish and people, and even a mermaid," Hermione said.

"Hey! Maybe that's her mum!" Ron cried as though he'd solved the world's greatest mystery.

Hermione considered for a moment, then said slowly, "Possibly."

"Yeah, and she didn't turn into foam on the water, either," Harry said. "What's up with that?"

"Yeah, Gran's story seems to be full of some pretty gaping holes," Ron said.

"I… I don't know," Hermione said, throwing her hands up in despair. "Even if the grandmother's story isn't full of holes, Andersen's is at any rate."

"Yeah, but then so are all of the rest of them," Ron said reasonably. "They're still a decent way to pass the time. What else are we going to do? Shadow puppetry on the tent wall?"

Harry tried very hard to school his features into an expression that would be worn by someone who hadn't been trying to create the silhouette of a Hippogriff next to the kitchen sink three hours ago.

"Fine, well, when she got to the witch's house, the old woman already knew why she had come. 'So, you want to go ashore to win the prince's heart, do you," said the witch," Hermione said, providing the witch with a suitably crackly voice.

"So, what, the witch is a Legilimens?" Ron asked.

"Perhaps," Hermione said, considering. "It would explain a lot. Then she went back to feeding her pet toads with sugar cubes from her mouth."

"Eugh!" Harry and Ron chorused together.

"That is just plain unsanitary!" Ron said, shuddering.

"Yeah, even Neville never did that with Trevor," Harry said.

"Be about the only way he'd ever get a kiss, though," Ron said with a snort.

"I think you're selling Neville short," Hermione said primly, looking very offended. "There are lots of girls who think he's quite wonderful."

"Oh, come off it," Ron said. "Neville's an alright sort as far as he goes, but seriously, I think Colin Creevey might be able to beat him up."

"Why do boys always assume girls choose the attractiveness of boys based on whom they're capable of besting in physical competition?" Hermione said, highly annoyed. "Why on earth would anyone even want to beat up poor Colin?"

"Cause they can?" Ron offered lamely.

Harry heard Hermione muttering some choice words under her breath about the fate of humanity based on the relative morality of adolescent males, but a moment later she continued the story.

"The Sea Witch agreed to help the little mermaid get a pair of legs so she could walk about on land," Hermione said.

"Okay, well, that's nice enough," Harry said. "At least this story has a positive portrayal of witches in it."

"Leaving out the whole toad-sugar-cube-kissing thing," Ron added.

"Not exactly," Hermione said. "Her payment was to be the best thing the littler mermaid had."

"Her crown?" Harry guessed.

"Her multiple painful oysters stuck on her tail?" Ron asked.

"Her… mermaids don't really seem to have a whole lot of possessions," Harry said.

"No, her voice," Hermione said.

"Um… seriously?" Ron said. "The Sea Witch wants to make her have chronic laryngitis?"

"No, she wants to cut out her tongue," Hermione said, looking rather green herself.

Harry looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to decide who was in danger of getting sick first. Personally, he was feeling more than a bit nauseous himself. He was also starting to wonder whether the Dursleys might not have done him a bit of a favor by saying he couldn't read fairy tales.

"That is just plain repulsive and makes no sense at all!" Ron finally spat out. "Blech! I mean, what's she going to do, make a necklace out of it or something?"

"No, she wanted to put it in the potion with the rest of the ingredients," Hermione said.

"That's just… okay, there's dark magic, and then there's bloody freaking pitch black dark magic, and then there's this!" Ron yelled. "I hope the kid wised up, went home, and married some nice Hinkypunk or something."

"No, she agreed," Hermione said, "even after the witch warned her that the potion would make it feel as though she were being cut in two with a sword and that every step she took would be as though she trod on razor sharp knives."

"Mental," Ron said, shaking his head sadly. "That's not even funny anymore. She's just plain sick."

"She also warned her that on the morning after the prince married someone else, the mermaid's heart would break, and she would at once turn to foam on the ocean, disappearing into oblivion with no soul and no hope of an afterlife," Hermione added.

"This is not a good deal," Ron said. "This is a very, very bad deal."

Harry nodded numbly. Granted, though, most of Hermione's stories usually ended happily for the main character, so perhaps things weren't as bleak as they seemed.

"I quite agree," Hermione said. "However, the little mermaid took the potion from her, rose to the surface, lay down on the beach, and then drank it down. The Sea Witch had been true to her word, and a pain as though a sword were slicing her in half burned white hot through her body until she passed out. When she awoke, still in pain, she found she had two of the loveliest legs in all the world."

"Great, so she's Betty bloody Grable," Ron said. "Has someone forgotten to tell her that in the 1700s women didn't go around with their legs visible anyway?"

"Betty Grable?" Hermione said, looking startled.

"I have layers," Ron said. "Besides, Dad always fancied her. He's got a picture of her in his workshop next to the poster of all the different kinds of plugs."

"I've never seen that in there," Hermione said, frowning as though she were trying to recall the layout of the room.

"Of course not," Ron said, grinning. "Dad's not dumb. It's bewitched so that anyone with two X chromosomes only sees a gardening calendar. Mum would have kittens."

"Well, regardless of your father's appreciation for Miss Grable's appendages, you'd normally be quite right about the cultural taboos regarding exposed legs in public during this era," Hermione said. "However, when the mermaid awoke, who was standing over her but the prince himself, checking to see if she was alive. Embarrassed, she covered herself in her long hair."

"Yeah, that'll work," Ron said to Harry. "Not unless she was that parsnip bird."

"Rapunzel," Hermione corrected him automatically. "In any case, the prince asked her kindly what her name was and what she was doing there."

"Kindly, huh? He finds a naked girl on the beach and wants to know her name and address. I'm not thinking he's qualifying for sainthood from all this completely unselfish kindness," Ron said with a snort.

"Point taken," Hermione said, blushing a bit. "However, the mermaid couldn't speak, so she tried to tell him with her eyes all that had happened."

"How'd that work out for her?" Ron asked mock-seriously.

"Not too well. The prince had no memory of the mermaid who had saved him, but he decided to bring her back to the castle and have a page's outfit made for her. She soon became his favorite of all his servants, and she followed him everywhere. She even slept outside his bedroom door on a cushion he had made for her," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"So… she's his pet?" Harry said.

"It looks like it," Hermione said. "He called her his 'dear dumb child' and she used to go on expeditions with him and his other servants and slaves and courtiers up into the hills around the castle, but all the time she was still in pain. Occasionally her feet would actually start to openly bleed on the ground, but she made light of it and tripped on gaily, so no one thought anything of it."

"He just… let her bleed all over the rocks?" Ron asked. "Didn't he maybe think of calling a doctor?"

"Apparently not," Hermione said.

"Talk about self-absorbed," Ron said. "This guy makes Draco look like a sensitive soul."

"Yeah, I think even Dudley would have at least told somebody else to call the hospital, even if for no other reason than to keep her from ruining his carpet," Harry added.

"But she could still walk, even with the knives and daggers and needles and pins and red hot pokers or whatever it was in her feet?" Ron asked.

"She not only walked but she danced as well. In fact there's a ballet version of this whole story," Hermione said. "The prince held a ball one night, and he applauded one of his servants for singing particularly well, though the mermaid knew her own voice had been far sweeter. However, when the band began to play again, she danced before the prince, as light as a bubble on the wind and just as graceful, and she was regarded as the most beautiful of them all."

"I see," Ron said. "You know something, 'Mione? This is one seriously messed up story."

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "However, the little mermaid had hope, for the prince told her that she with her 'speaking eyes' was dearer to him than anyone else in the world, and that if he had his own way, he would marry her rather than any other girl."

"Right, because dancing and bleeding are key parts of all relationships," Ron said. "Speaking of speaking eyes, did she learn sign language or anything?"

"No, there's no mention of that in the story," Hermione said. "Sign language existed in Denmark at the time this was written, though it wasn't widely studied, but Andersen doesn't bring that into the story at all."

"So no conversation, not that she could have even introduced herself, what with the lack of a name," Ron said, snorting. "Granted, they're on fair footing there since he doesn't seem to have one either."

"However," Hermione continued, "the prince's parents thought it was high time for him to marry and insure the lineage would continue, and his marriage to a princess had been contracted at birth."

"That doesn't bode well for our little bloody-footed princess," Ron said, looking serious.

"Wait, how old is he supposed to be again?" Harry asked.

"About sixteen," Hermione explained. "Again, it's quite young, but if Edward VI had managed to marry and produce at least one child by his death at age 15, the whole mess between Mary I and Elizabeth I could have been avoided."

"Mary the first what and Elizabeth the first what?" Ron asked.

"Queen," Hermione said.

"How could they both be the first queen?" Ron asked, looking completely confused.

"No, just the first queen named Mary and the first queen named Elizabeth," Hermione explained.

"Of England, I take it?" Ron said.

"Well, there were a few queens named Mary in Hungary, but yes," Hermione said. "At any rate, both of them were daughters of the previous king by different mothers, and they went back and forth over who was supposed to be queen after their only brother died."

"Right," Ron said, looking bored. "So they married 'em off young to keep the monarchy going or something. Let's get back to nameless bleeding girl and nameless narcissist prince."

"At any rate, he told the princess that his parents wouldn't force him to marry the other girl," Hermione said.

"Bully for them," Ron said.

"Quite," Hermione agreed. "For the time, they're actually very open-minded. The prince told the little mermaid, 'O, there is but one other lady in all the world who could capture my heart, and as it is not she, I would as well have you.'"

"And who might that be?" Harry asked.

"Well, the prince and his parents went to the seashore to greet the young princess, you had been away at a convent school," Hermione said.

"Wait," Ron said, frowning. "Convent school? You can't be serious."

"You've picked up on it," Hermione said, nodding approvingly. "The girl who disembarked from the boat was indeed the same girl who had found the prince lying on the beach after the mermaid had saved him."

"The same one he claimed had saved his life by not tripping over him?" Harry said.

'The very same," Hermione said, "and it turned out she was the only other girl he had ever thought he could love. Overjoyed, he enfolded his blushing bride into his arms and declared himself the happiest man in the world, insisting the wedding take place at once."

"Yowch," Harry said, wincing.

"He didn't exactly ask her if she was willing to marry him, now did he?" Ron said. "Bit overconfident, isn't he?"

"All things considered, it sort of fits with his character though, doesn't it?" Harry said.

"Very true," Hermione said, beaming at both of them for their realization. "In any case, the wedding was held that very day upon the same ship that had taken the princess to the harbor, and the little mermaid stood as maid of honor during the ceremony."

"Okay, that's just plain mean," Ron said. "Were her feet bleeding as she walked down the aisle?"

"Let's hope not," Hermione said, shuddering. "The prince had told her he wanted her right next to him as the vows were said because he knew she would be happier for him than any other."

"I hope she kicked him in the bum," Ron said fervently.

"No, she did not, though she felt her heart breaking, and she knew she must die before the sun rose," Hermione said.

"This is really sad," Ron said. "I mean, yeah, she's a creepy stalker, but that's just too much."

Harry had to agree. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to see Ginny marry someone else, or worse, have to stand best man to the fellow doing it. He shuddered in sympathy.

"Yeah, Hermione, there's got to be a way out of this one," Harry said. "There always is, right?"

"Well, sort of," Hermione said. "That night, after the band had finished playing and the little mermaid had danced to the delight of all the guests…"

"… this girl just swallows pain whole, doesn't she?" Ron cut in.

"…the little mermaid stood on the deck and looked down into the water, realizing that in a little while she would be nothing but foam. At that moment, her sisters arose out of the ocean in a group, their arms stretched towards her," Hermione said.

"Finally, the cavalry arrives!" Ron said.

"Maybe," Hermione said, and her expression didn't inspire much hope in Harry. "The oldest sister came quite close to the little mermaid, and it was then she realized that her sisters' hair had all been cut off short."

"Oh for crying out loud, did the witch from Rapunzel open a beauty parlor or what?" Ron asked.

"You're actually pretty close. The sister said that the six of them had all gone to the Sea Witch, and they had traded their hair for a solution to save their sister," Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said, looking satisfied. "That seems like a pretty reasonable fee, all told. So what's the solution?"

"The oldest sister handed the little mermaid a knife and said, 'Before dawn, you must steal into the bridal chamber. There, plunge this knife into the prince's heart. When the blood pours forth, let it flow over your feet, and they shall instantly become a fishtail again. Then you may return to us and live out the rest of your hundred years of life, carefree and happy,'" Hermione explained.

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

"Uh… huh," Ron said slowly. "There is so much wrong with that statement that I'm not even going to touch it. Just keep going."

Harry nodded as well, not sure he could find words to express properly just how disturbing the story was.

"The little mermaid took the knife from her hand, and the sisters splashed back beneath the surface of the waves, out of sight," Hermione said. "Slowly, the little mermaid crept towards the beautiful silk tent that had been pitched on deck, where the prince and his bride were now sleeping."

"Right," Ron said, giving Harry a glance. "Sleeping. Sure."

"Oh, come on, Ron, it's a children's story!" Hermione said in annoyance.

"Yeah, a kid's story about slicing out tongues, walking around on mangled feet, and killing people with knives then bathing in their blood," Ron said. "Silly me to make it sound sordid in some way by suggesting the prince and his new wife were doing what normal couples would on their wedding night."

Hermione tipped her head to one said, considering.

"Point taken," she conceded. "She carefully opened the entrance to the tent…"

"Geez, she really has completed the full course in stalkerhood at this point," Ron said, making a face.

"…and she stared down at the prince and his bride as they lay sleeping," Hermione said.

Harry saw Ron actually bite his lip to restrain himself from saying anything. Frankly, even he could have come up with some fairly apt ribald words on that one.

"The prince stirred slightly, then said the name of his bride in his sleep, and stilled again," Hermione said.

"That was probably a mistake," Ron said. "I don't think she's going to need much more to set her off."

"The little mermaid raised the knife, ready to strike, but at the last moment she ran from the tent and threw the knife into the ocean, where blood spurted from the surface of the waves," Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said. "Well, that was decent of her. Sounds like she might have accidentally knifed one of her six sisters, though."

"You know, it's very possible that's what's being implied, though I've never really thought of it that way before," Hermione said, squinting. "Yes, that's a perfectly acceptable assumption."

Ron looked so pleased with himself that Harry rolled his eyes in disgust.

"Just at that moment, the edge of the sun came above the eastern horizon, and the little mermaid felt her body starting to dissolve. She threw herself into the water, feeling her flesh become only foam on the waves," Hermione said.

"Wait, she died?" Ron said, really looking upset. "The poor kid actually died?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "She knew she didn't have a choice, so she tried to face it as bravely as she could."

Harry shuddered. He didn't think he'd be able to handle something like that so reasonably.

"Yeah, but," Ron said, still looking very sad, "these stories have a happy ending all the time, don't they?"

"No, not always," Hermione said.

"That bloody well stinks!" Ron said. "I mean, she was a real weirdo, but I didn't want her dead or anything."

"I didn't say it was the end of the story though, did I?" Hermione said kindly.

"Oh," Ron said, slightly mollified. "Go on then, though usually there's not a whole lot that fixes dying."

"Well, the little mermaid suddenly looked about her and realized that she was still herself, though she wasn't in her body anymore, and she saw many lovely invisible spirits in the air, and she suddenly realized she had a body like theirs now," Hermione said.

"That's… different," Harry said, not sure what else to say.

"Better than drifting off into nothing at any rate," Ron said.

"One of the spirits took her by the hands and said, 'Dear little mermaid, you have proven yourself patient, courageous, and loving, and by your great suffering, you have become like us, the Daughters of the Air,'" Hermione said, using an appropriately misty voice that Harry thought sounded quite a lot like Luna.

"Daughters of the Air?" Ron asked. "Okay, whatever, but I rather thought she was going to be able to go to heaven now or have a soul or something. What's a Daughter of the Air even do?"

"The spirit told the little mermaid that they brought cooling breezes to those in faraway lands, and that through their good works, they could in time earn a soul," Hermione said.

"Yeah, kid, because you've had it so soft with the tongue amputation and the mangled tootsies," Ron said. "So she's what, a breeze now?"

"Pretty much," Hermione said. "Just then, the little mermaid saw that there was a commotion on ship. They had realized she was missing, and after searching everywhere, the prince and his bride stared forlornly into the sea, thinking she must have drowned."

"Wow. He managed to work himself all the way up to forlorn," Ron said, pretending to look impressed. "So what'd the little mermaid do?"

"Well, she made a little breeze to cool the bride's face, kissed the prince on the cheek, and rose into the air with the other spirits," Hermione said.

"So how long does she need to work to get a soul?" Harry asked.

"Oh, the spirit told her that it would take them three hundred years," Hermione said.

"Three hundred years?" Ron said, looking stunned. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "But then she added that when they invisibly visited a house where there was a good, kind child who deserved his or her parents' love, a year would be taken off from their time of trial, but when they came upon a bad, wicked child, the Daughters of the Air would cry, and each tear added a day to their wait."

Ron looked at her for a moment, then blurted out, "So this whole thing is just a blackmail story to get kids to behave! 'Be good, junior, or you'll make the poor little mermaid cry and she'll wind up in Breeze Limbo forever!'"

Hermione pursed her lips together for a moment, then said, "Yes."

"I… that's… I… it's amazing you lot have any sanity left at all by the age of seven," Ron said, dropping back against the cushions in emotional exhaustion. "That is just completely unreal."

"Well, at least it got your mind off food for a bit," Hermione said.

"Too right. I should go to bed, but I'm a little afraid of the nightmares this is going to give me," Ron said.

"If it makes you feel any better, when Disney remade the film, the little mermaid ended up marrying the prince and living happily every after," Hermione said soothingly.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Ron said, still looking uncertain.

When Harry went to bed that night, he couldn't help thinking of the strange, underwater world he'd seen at the bottom of the lake where the merpeople had threatened Hermione and Ron. He was glad they couldn't remember any of it. But as strange and horrible as much of Hermione's story had been, the thought that haunted him most was the image of the little mermaid walking forward to her death, knowing that the only way she could prevent it was to trade the lives of those she loved for her own.

He didn't know why, but it gave him chills.


	4. The Three Little Pigs

Author: Meltha

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Yes, thank you.

Spoilers: Through the series.

Distribution: If you're interested, please let me know.

Summary: Hermione is still telling the boys fairy tales, this time "The Three Little Pigs."

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.

The Three L(acking-in-Any-Sanity)ittle Pigs

For once it wasn't raining, but the wind was more than making up for it. Hermione had Apparated them to a moor near the Scottish border, and while it was perfectly isolated and therefore very safe, it was also very exposed. They'd needed to cast a Silencing Charm to keep the incessantly gusting wind from all but deafening them, and even now the roof of the tent kept rippling. Harry stared up at the moving fabric, which, although it was now almost eerily quiet, was still very unsettling.

"Hermione?" Ron asked as he threw the Deluminator back and forth from one hand to the other in what was becoming a nervous habit. "There's no chance the whole bloody tent is going to up and fly off in the middle of the night, is there?"

"Not unless we get stuck in the middle of a hurricane," Hermione said, but she looked a bit worried. "Granted, the Death Eaters have been known to conjure those at times, but we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I think we'll be safe enough."

"If anywhere is safe," Harry said.

He was feeling in rather a sulky mood, probably egged on by the Horcrux which, as usual, was making everything around it seem worse. Currently it hung around Harry's neck on its chain, which seemed to weigh far too much for such a little thing.

Hermione looked at him sympathetically, and even Ron seemed to have picked up on the idea that Harry was out of sorts. He screwed up his mouth, seeming to be fishing about for something to break the mood.

"Well, it's getting to be about that time again, I think," Ron said, turning to Hermione expectantly.

"Time for you to complain about my potatoes again?" Hermione asked with false innocence.

"Ehm, no," Ron said, though he snuck a guilty look at Harry. In all honesty, as much as it was a treat to have potatoes, Harry had been hard pressed to identify them as anything other than rocks after they'd come off the stove.

"To expound on how hungry you are?" she suggested, smiling a tad too sweetly.

"No, I'm full up," Ron said, though Harry suspected that might be because the potatoes were laying like a brick in his stomach.

"To tell me for the umpteenth time that my hair is a frizzy disaster?" Hermione said, and Ron actually winced. "I believe your last comparison involved the Whomping Willow and a direct lightning strike, didn't it?"

"Actually, I just wanted one of your lovely, daft, highly amusing stories, Hermione," Ron said, trying to look charmingly hopeful. Harry had to hand it to him; it might be annoying as sand fleas in his socks to have to watch Ron practicing faces in the mirror every time Hermione was out of sight, but he really had gotten this one down pat, as Hermione's reaction showed.

"Well…," she said, looking uncertain. "All right then, especially since you've reminded me of one by something you said earlier."

"Did I?" Ron said, brightening. "Something about a tree that gets struck by lightning?"

"No," Hermione said, sighing in frustration, then muttering something that sounded a good deal like, "I swear I'm going to chop the whole lot of it off when we're done with this wretched business."

"So, what then?" Harry asked, hoping that she this would be one of the more insane stories if for no other reason than to distract him. Weirdly, the Horcrux never seemed to bother him so much when she was telling them a particularly bizarre fairy tale.

"Oh, you'll see soon enough," Hermione said, and she looked a bit less annoyed. "Once…"

"…upon a time," Ron said, settling into a cushion and looking as attentive as a kindergartner during story time.

"Yes," Hermione said, and she nearly laughed, which was a good sign. "There lived a mother pig who had three piglets."

"Is this going to be a talking animals story again?" Ron asked.

"It is," Hermione said, as though daring him to find fault with that. "Why?"

"Oh, that's fine," Ron said, smiling. "It's just I like to be prepared for the particular flavour of crazy that's on the menu. Makes it a bit less of a shock."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, but continued on.

"The three piglets, all brothers, got along with one another splendidly, but while the first and second brothers were inclined to be lazy and think of pleasure before work," and here Hermione seemed to give Harry and Ron a rather accusatory look, "the third pig worked hard, studied, and waited to play until after his toil was done."

"What kind of 'toil' does a pig have to do?" Ron asked, drawing air-quotes around the word. "He had to put in so many hours a day at mud wallowing school?"

"Or maybe he needed to polish his trough and practice oinking?" Harry said.

Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them, then shrugged.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Whatever it was that pigs do as work, the third pig did it and the other two didn't."

"Fair enough," Ron said. "We'll sweep it under the rug, then. Carry on!"

Hermione sighed again, and Harry spared a moment to think that her lungs really must be getting very strong from doing that so often, but she sallied forth once more in a moment.

"When the little pigs had grown up, the mother pig told them it was time for them to go out into the world and make their living," Hermione said.

"As what?" Ron said. "Accountants?"

"Well, that would be fitting if they were piggy banks," Hermione said with a grin, but it seemed to go over Ron's head. "Pilots, then? You know, 'when pigs fly'?"

Ron looked at Harry with concern as though he thought Hermione might have finally cracked from the stress.

"Never mind," she said. "They were pigs that walk on their hind legs, talk, and wear clothes. Maybe they really were going to be accountants or clerks or something. Anyway, the three little pigs walked off into the great big world together."

"What about the mum?" Ron asked.

"She stayed at home," Hermione said.

"And was there a father pig, by any chance?" Harry asked.

"He's never mentioned in the story. It's implied that the mother pig is a widow, though it's never really said outright," Hermione said. "I suppose it would be a bit of a lonely life for her, what with the piglets all grown and out in the world on their own."

"Yeah," Ron said, frowning. "Reminds me of Mum. I kind of wish she still had one or two little ones at home for company's sake. She's got to be climbing the walls by now, worrying about the lot of us and not having anyone to take her mind off it."

Hermione looked at him kindly, and Harry noticed she put a hand lightly on his arm.

"There's always your father, you know," she said consolingly.

"True," Ron said, looking up at her. "But by now, she's probably hen-pecking him to death. You know how women are."

Hermione's hand was suddenly very absent from Ron's arm, and she seemed to have managed to move as far from him as humanly possible while still remaining on the couch. Ron looked a little confused, and Harry just shook his head at him. At this rate they should progress to their first kiss somewhere around the twelfth of never.

"At any rate, the three little pigs—" Hermione began when she was suddenly interrupted.

"Wait, I thought you said they were grown up now," Ron said.

"Yes, I did," Hermione said, and Harry noticed she was closing her eyes and appeared to be steeling herself for the worst. "What's wrong with that?"

"You said they were three little pigs," Ron said. "How can they be little if they're grown? Are they mini-pigs or something?"

Hermione appeared to be in danger of rubbing her nose right off her face out of frustration by the time she said, "Ronald, the story is called 'The Three Little Pigs.' They are full grown pigs, yet they are still little. If you want to infer from that the pigs have some species of dwarfism, I shall not say thee nay, but for the love of Merlin, just go with it!"

"'I shall not say thee nay?'" Ron mouthed to Harry, looking rather alarmed, before continuing in a very even, calm tone to Hermione, "Alright, then, the little pigs are grown up big pigs that are still little. I can handle that. Ehm… can you?"

"YES!" she hollered, then caught herself, shook her head vigorously, and sighed. "Sorry. At any rate, the three pigs of whatever relative size struck out on their own. The first little pig, who was quite lazy, decided to build his house of straw."

"Makes sense," Ron said. "After all, the barn they were living in probably was full of the stuff, so he's used to it."

"Yes, but the problem is it's a house made entirely of straw with no barn attached," Hermione said. "It's just a cottage made of straw, walls, doors, roof and all."

"So?" Ron asked.

"So how strong do you think that's going to be?" Hermione asked, sounding remarkably like Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh," Ron said. "Hadn't thought of that. I bet it was right cheap though."

"Probably," Hermione said, "and it was almost undoubtedly fast to build."

"Well, now, I'm not so sure about that," Harry said, breaking in. "I mean, really, it seems like it would take kind of a long time to make a house entirely out of straw."

"Yeah," Ron chimed in. "Think how long it would take to plait it all together and figure out how to put in the floor plan and so on."

"You're over-thinking this," Hermione said. "It's not like he was making a creation by Frank Lloyd Wright or something."

"Who?" Ron and Harry asked.

"He was an architect of the early to mid twentieth century who specialized in the Arts and Crafts movement and revolutionized much of modern building," Hermione rattled off automatically. "The point is supposed to be that the lazy first little pig didn't do his homework and wound up getting Ts on all of his NEWTs… I mean, he didn't do what he was supposed to and built a very weak house."

Hermione blushed crimson at her slip but plowed on gamely.

"The second little pig, who was nearly as lazy as the first one, built his home of sticks," Hermione said.

"Well, that's a bit better," Ron said. "I mean, isn't it?"

"Structurally speaking, wood would indeed be stronger than straw since straw is technically a form of grass, and trees obviously have more structural integrity than grass would, but the point is he just picked up a bunch of random sticks off the ground, shaped them into something that looked a little like a house, and called it a day so he could go outside a play," Hermione said. "He still made a very poor job of it."

"I'm starting to think this story's moral is something about having fun being a bad thing," Ron said to Harry with a grimace of distaste.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but continued on.

"Finally, the last little pig, who was industrious and clever, built his house out of bricks," Hermione said.

"How?" Ron asked.

"What?" Hermione said, staring at him blankly.

"How did the third pig get hold of bricks? I mean, straw and sticks, you're likely to find those just lying about, yeah? But you're not going to find bricks just sitting there. Did he apprentice himself to a bricklayer who was really open-minded about hiring runty pigs or did he just steal a load of bricks or what?" Ron asked.

"How would you even go about stealing a load of bricks?" Harry said, looking at Ron.

"I suppose he could have made off with a lorry full of them," Ron said shrugging. "He can walk, talk, and build a house out of bricks, so I'd guess learning to drive wouldn't be too outside his abilities."

"This took place long before lorries were invented," Hermione said, but Harry could tell from her expression that she was actually trying to figure this out. "However, I suppose he might have stolen a cartload of bricks from an unwary mason, though that undermines the story's idea that hard work is important in life by having the pig become a dishonest thief in order to do honest hard work. On the other hand, he might have simply come upon a crumbling ruin of an old brick house and taken the bricks to the place he'd chosen for his home on a brick by brick basis, which would underline the theme of hard work as that would be particularly bothersome… though it would also suggest he'd have to sleep out of doors with no protection at all during the building process, which isn't very intelligent of him. Still, it's a decent solution that doesn't involve stealing and would even suggest the importance of recycling in modern retelling. Yes, I suppose that would be the most logical solution and the one most in keeping with the spirit of the original."

Privately, Harry wondered whether the pig could simply have used Hermione's potatoes instead of bricks and gotten the same result, but as she was finally smiling again, he decided it might be wise to hold his tongue.

"Or he stole the bricks," Ron said with a shrug. "Six of one."

"In any case, the third little pig built himself a very fine house of brick," Hermione said, as though she were convincing herself to ignore Ron's comment out of sheer willpower. "The two other little pigs laughed at their brother, saying that they got to play all day long while their brother worked at things they thought weren't very important, and they called him foolish and boring and a lot of other mean things, but he was still very satisfied that he'd done a good job of his task."

Ron shot Harry a look that suggested he was seeing through the paper-thin analogy Hermione was making, but to his credit, he kept mum.

"Not long after, a big, bad wolf came prowling through the forest. He was very hungry, and he had smelled the tempting odor of pork floating towards him," Hermione said.

"He smelled pork? Okay, I can go with the idea that he smelled pigs. They aren't that hard to smell, really, but pork? Had the pigs taken to very in-depth sunbathing or something?" Ron asked.

"Then he smelled pig," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "Better?"

"Much," Ron replied, sitting back against the cushions with a satisfied air.

"The wolf came to the house of the first little pig, the one who had built his house out of straw. He walked up to the front door and said, 'Little pig, little pig, let me come in!'" Hermione said, giving the wolf a gravelly voice that sounded rather like he'd had a bit too much Ogden's. "The first little pig replied, 'Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!'"

"The hair of his chinny-chin-chin?" Ron said slowly with a tone of deep disbelief. "Seriously?"

"Pigs actually do have hair on their chins, being mammals," Hermione said, putting her hands on her hips. "It's not totally ridiculous, and it completes the rhyme."

"I mean, at least the pig is smart enough not to let the wolf in, I suppose," Ron admitted, "but there's got to be a better rhyme that 'chinny-chin-chin.'"

"Go away or I'll throw you in the bin?" Harry suggested, mimicking the tempo Hermione had used.

"Not bad," Ron said appraisingly. How about 'Get away from me, you stupid has-been!'"

"Back off or I'll hit you with a rolling pin?" Harry threw in.

"Stop it right now or I'll kick you in the shin?" Ron added.

"Leave or you'll need to alert your next of kin!" Harry said, starting to really enjoy himself.

"Desist at once or I'll whack you firmly over the head with my hardcover copy of _The_ _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_!" Hermione said triumphantly.

Harry and Ron stared at her.

"Not that it's a very thick book," she mumbled in embarrassment. "I suppose _Encyclopedia Britannica_ would be more effective, but it's the only one I could think of that rhymed."

"You think the issue with that one was the page count?" Ron said.

"It was either that or a reference to Anne Boleyn, but that seemed historically insensitive," Hermione said giving a little shudder. "In any case, the wolf replied with 'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll bloooooooooooow your house in!'"

Hermione really had gone for broke with the wolf's voice on this one, trying to make it as creepy as possible while at the same time nearly passing out from how long she extended the o in blow.

"Wait, is this a relative of the talking freak wolf in 'Moderately Sized Sun Bonnet'?" Ron asked without sounding the least impressed by Hermione's acting skills, which had almost rendered her unconscious.

"What?" she asked. "Oh, 'Little Red Riding Hood.' No, I… hmm. I suppose he could be. Of course, wolves show up fairly often in fairy tales as villains, but still, they do have quite a lot in common, don't they?"

"Including breaking and entering," Ron said, nodding. "Rather, really, attempted breaking and entering for this wolf, because that couldn't possibly work, blowing a house down."

"Oh, but it did," Hermione said off-handedly as she was still apparently considering the question of the related wolves.

"The wolf blew the house down?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione said.

"With TNT, right?" Ron said.

"No, he just took a deep breath and blew all the straw away," Hermione said. "The little pig hadn't worked hard enough at building his home, so the wolf was able to destroy it just by breathing on it."

"That's either some seriously shoddy craftsmanship… er, craftspigship, or a wolf with one very good pair of lungs," Harry said.

"That's not possible, though," Ron said, looking at Harry. "You can't just breathe on a house, even a straw one, and make it blow away."

"Actually, it's stated that the house blew in, not away, which might not take as much pressure," Hermione said. "As for the average air pressure of a wolf's breath, I don't know off the top of my head, but humans can blow at as high as 2.8 pounds per square inch if they're in very good physical condition. One would assume that the writer of the original story must have been familiar with wolves howling, and the noise is really rather stunning. It can travel miles away under the right conditions. The storyteller must have come to the conclusion that a wolf would generate a tremendous amount of air if it concentrated its breath in one place, which, while faulty in practice, does make some sense on a metaphorical level if not a scientific one."

Ron paused, looked at Hermione for a moment, then turned back to Harry and said, "You can't just breathe on a house, even a straw one, and make it blow away."

"Right," Harry said, patting his arm. "You can't. But this is a story."

"Story," Ron said to himself, as though cherishing a final shred of sanity. "It's a story. And Hermione knows about the psi of human breath and the audible distance of wolf calls at the drop of a hat. That at least I can believe."

"In any case, the wolf blew in the straw house, and the first little pig was left standing there with no defenses at all," Hermione said. "Then the story goes one of two ways. In one version, the pig runs quickly next door to the second little pig's house. His brother lets him in then bolts the door before the wolf can get inside."

"He bolts the door on his sloppily made house of sticks?" Harry asked.

"It' doesn't really take all that much to make a bolt beside a few sticks anyway," Hermione said defensively.

"Fine, the second little pig installed a deadbolt in his stick house," Ron said. "What's the other option?"

"The wolf eats the first pig," Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said, looking unhappy. "I rather liked him. Let's go with option one then rather than killing off the anthropomorphic piggy."

"Fine," Hermione said with a nod. "The wolf came to the second little pig's door and said once more 'Little pig, little pig, let me come in.'"

"Even if he already ate the first pig?" Harry said.

"Yes, it's the same in both stories," Hermione said. "I suppose one could read into that the idea that the story also has a moral against gluttony as well."

"I could eat a pig," Ron said with a shrug. "Maybe two, if they were little."

Hermione gazed into the middle distance for a moment, then shrugged as well. "Point taken. Anyway, the little pigs chorused together, 'Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin!' and the wolf said, 'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll bloooooooooooow your house in!'"

Harry was starting to be concerned that Hermione was actually going to be rendered unconscious if she kept up the wolf's voice much longer, but then he supposed that might give Ron an excuse to perform mouth-to-mouth, thereby ending the perpetual unresolved sexual tension that was threatening to go nuclear at any moment. In that case, it could be worth it.

"So, did the wolf with the superhumanly huge lungs blow down the house of sticks as well?" Ron asked seriously.

"Yes, he did," Hermione said. "Just as before, in one version the second pig is eaten, but in the other, the two little pigs run to their brother's house, and he lets them in and bars the door before the wolf gets there."

"The wolf must run pretty slowly not to catch them," Harry said.

"Don't forget, he's still recovering from the whale-like exhaling he's been doing," Ron said. "I'll cut him some slack on that as he must be out of breath to start with."

Hermione appeared to be squinting at nothing, and Ron had to elbow her to continue.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "I was just wondering what the air pressure of a blue whale's blow hole would be. In any case, the wolf did come up to the third pig's house, and once again he said…"

"'Little pig, little pig, let me come in?'" Ron suggested.

"You must be psychic," Hermione said sarcastically.

"Those Divination classes had to pay off eventually," Ron said with a wink.

"Well, would you care to guess what might happen next?" Hermione asked.

"I'd wager that the pigs made some reference to the hair on their chins, followed the wolf saying he was going to blow their house in," Ron said sagely.

"Correct. Except he couldn't," Hermione said.

"So the wolf's breath is finally foiled by something," Harry said. "Nice to know the story wasn't being purposely weird."

"No, the talking wolf who could start his own demolition company using only his own lungs did have his limitations," Ron said.

"The wolf kept huffing," and here Hermione blew hard, "and puffing," and again, "and huffing," and again, "and puffing…"

"Good way to start hyperventilating, that," Ron said in some concern.

"No, the wolf didn't—" she started.

"I meant you," Ron said, peering at her. "You feeling okay?"

"I guess I am a little out of breath," she admitted with a smile. "I always wondered why my father didn't tell this story more often. I think I've got the answer. Anyway, the wolf wasn't able to move the brick house at all no matter how hard he tried."

"Good, and that's the end of the story?" Harry asked.

"No, the wolf was still hungry and very determined, and realized that he could get into the brick house through the chimney," Hermione said.

"Did he dress up like Father Christmas first?" Ron asked.

"No, he did not," Hermione said with prim decorum, but she seemed to be hiding a grin. "But the third pig, who was extremely clever, had realized that the wolf would try to find another way in, so he had built a great fire in the fireplace and put a large pot of water over it to boil."

"Wait, I see where this is going," Ron said. "The wolf couldn't be stupid enough to jump down a chimney that had smoke coming out of it, could he?"

"He was indeed," Hermione said. "The wolf bolted down the chimney and landed right in the pot of boiling water, shrieking in agony, and the third little pig clamped the lid down fast before the wolf could hop out again."

"So the wolf… boiled… to… death…" Ron said, looking ill.

"Would you rather the little pigs had been eaten?" Hermione asked.

"No, but I don't see why anyone's absolutely got to die in all these stories," Ron said.

"I suppose it's just the way they drive home the moral," Hermione said. "Because of the third little pig's dedication to hard work, instead of being eaten, they ate wolf stew for dinner than night, and the three pigs, or the one pig in the other version, lived happily ever after."

"Wolf stew?" Harry said, grimacing.

Ron thought a moment, then said, "At this point, I probably wouldn't say no to it as long as the wolf wasn't talking prior to being popped in the pot, or, you know, wearing a grandmother's nightgown and bonnet. You've got to draw a moral line somewhere."

Harry and Hermione laughed, and outside the wind continued to blow ferociously. It was growing late, and the silhouette of the full moon was dimly visible through the thin fabric of the tent. Somewhere, Harry thought, Professor Lupin was becoming into a wolf again, and the image unsettled him deeply after the story they'd heard. Harry somehow was more aware of the darkness than ever, of the very thin barrier between them and the Death Eaters who lurked in the night, hunting for prey. Eventually, they turned in for the night, each going to their own accustomed spot and trying to find solace in sleep for a few short hours. But after a few minutes, the silence was broken.

"Um, Hermione?" Ron said from near the couch.

"Yes?" her voice came from somewhere around the kitchen.

"Thanks for, you know, learning how to build a house out of brick and letting us in," Ron said softly.

There was a pause before she said, in an equally soft voice, "You're welcome… little pig."

In the darkness outside, the big, bad wolf with red eyes still roved, but he could not enter the house of the three friends. Somehow, within the insubstantial walls of the tent, Harry felt safe.


	5. Puss in Bonkers Absolutely Bonkersoots

Puss in B(onkers, Simply Bonkers)oots

It had been a deceptively calm, mild autumn day. While the Horcrux hunt was still fruitless and their bellies were far less full than they would have liked, at least nothing dreadful had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Their campsite on the far edge of a sheep pasture was actually quite picturesque, and if Harry closed his eyes and imagined hard, he could almost pretend they were on holiday. Almost, but not quite.

"I never thought I'd say it, but I miss Fred and George's explosions," Ron said as he tossed the Deluminator towards the ceiling, catching it with his left hand. "Aside from the sheep, it's too quiet out here by a long ways. It's making me nervous."

"Yes, well, I suppose we should be glad we're not somewhere that's blowing up," Hermione said, straightening up from her latest perusal of Beedle. "Still, I miss some of the little things I took for granted at Hogwarts."

"Like Monday always being pear tart day," Ron said, leaning back and looking up wistfully at the lamp overhead.

"And how the First Years get lost well into February just going from the common room to the Great Hall," Harry said with a laugh.

"I miss the smell of the library, all musty and soft," Hermione said.

"How'd I know you were going to miss the library most," Ron said, chucking her gently on the shoulder. "Of course, I miss the smell of the Quidditch pitch right after it's mowed, so I'm not much better."

"I almost wish I could see Professor McGonagall shaking her head in total disbelief at something we've done that's broken fifty school rules," Hermione said.

"Yeah," Harry said, "and the way that Peeves always comes whizzing out of nowhere when you least expected him and causes total mayhem."

"Mmm," Ron said in agreement. "I miss that badly dressed blighter. At this point I'm almost nostalgic for Filch and that wretched Mrs. Norris of his."

"I miss Crookshanks," Hermione said with a sigh. "I hope your mother doesn't mind him staying at the Burrow. I keep thinking that maybe I should have brought him with us."

"That mangy fleabag?" Ron said, sitting up. "What good would he be out here?"

Mentally, Harry pleaded with Ron to shut it. He knew Ron had never liked Hermione's cat, even if he hadn't eaten Scabbers, although it turned out that maybe it would have been better if he had. But Hermione obviously loved the ugly thing, and he didn't even have to glance over at her to know that she was probably vibrating with rage.

"I'll have you know that Crookshanks happens to be a highly intelligent cat," Hermione said in a tightly controlled voice that boded all sorts of danger. "He's half Kneazle, you know."

"So what?" Ron said. "He's still not exactly the prettiest thing I've ever seen."

"There's more to someone than just looks, you know," Hermione said, obviously getting even more upset.

"Fine, but name one useful thing that freak of nature could do out here in the middle of nowhere," Ron said with a nastier tone than Harry thought the situation warranted.

"He's good at picking out people who can't be trusted," Hermione said, snapping her book closed, "so maybe he could tell when Death Eaters are about."

"Doubtful," Ron said. "He'd just be another mouth to feed. Though I suppose if things got too bad we could eat him. There's usefulness for you"

That was it, Harry thought. They were now all going to die from being in such close proximity to Hermione's head as it exploded, though perhaps it might manage to take out the Horcrux in the explosion. That was one option that hadn't explored yet. Harry braced himself for the inevitable angry tirade, only to be met with the last sound he expected: Hermione giggling uncontrollably.

"What?" Ron asked, completely confused.

"Yeah, that's what I'd like to know," Harry said, almost feeling cheated.

"No, it's just he sounds exactly like the miller's youngest son in 'Puss in Boots,'" Hermione said. "He underestimated a cat too."

"Is that another fairy tale?" Harry asked, deeply relieved that Ron had accidentally said something funny.

"Yes," Hermione said.

"Well, what are you waiting for," Ron said, leaning back against the sofa cushion. "On with it."

Hermione glared at him.

"Ehm, please," Ron added, looking a bit embarrassed.

Hermione gave him a little nod, then sat cross-legged on her chair in the pose Harry was beginning to associate with her storytelling.

"Once…"

"…upon a time," Harry finished.

The other two stared at him.

"Isn't that usually my line?" Ron said, pretending to be affronted.

"What, I can't play audience participation too?" Harry said, trying to look innocent.

"Wonderful," Hermione muttered. "Now there are two of them. Anyway, yes, once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a widowed miller who had three sons."

"So far, so good," Ron said. "Then what?"

"The miller died," Hermione said, giving him another glare for interrupting again so soon.

"Oh. Well, that was fast," Ron said. "Is there a wicked step-mum involved in this one?"

"No," Hermione said. "For once, there isn't a pseudo-maternal figure who connives against the next generation."

"Bully for Captain Picard," Harry said automatically.

"Who?" Ron asked.

"Sorry, you wouldn't get it. There's a Muggle television program about a spaceship captain, well, actually, two of them," Harry said.

"Two captains? That's bound to cause trouble," Ron said.

"No, two programs, one from the 1960s and another one later on. The second one was called _The Next Generation_," Harry said. "I got to see it once in a while over Dudley's shoulder since there wasn't any magic in it."

"Although it's arguable that much of the technology on the _Enterprise_ is actually Muggle wish fulfillment on a par with the use of magic, such as the use of the replicator to conjure up any food of the person's choice or the holodeck standing in as a replacement for a variety of enchantments by permitting the character to create or recreate an environment of his or her choosing within the parameters of the computer program," Hermione said thoughtfully. "There's really a remarkable amount of crossover between science fiction and traditional fantasy tropes when you examine them closely."

Ron blinked at her.

"Huh?" he asked intelligently.

"Plus Klingons' voices do sound remarkably like Merpeople's," Hermione said as though she hadn't heard him.

"Right," Ron said, shooting Harry a completely baffled look. For once, though, Harry had actually managed to follow part of that.

"Kirk or Picard?" he asked her with a grin.

"Neither," she said dismissively. "It's really all about Spock, isn't it? Anyway, where were we?"

"The miller's dead," Ron said, sounding like he was desperately grasping at straws. "That much I know."

"Yes, right, and the three sons divided up the miller's worldly possessions among themselves. The oldest son got the mill itself," Hermione said.

"Why did the oldest one get it?" Ron asked. "Shouldn't they have flipped a coin or something?"

"I suppose that would have been fairer," Hermione said, "but at the time of the story, the rule was that the oldest son got pretty much everything, sort of like with Muggle royalty where the king's oldest son gets to be the next king and any other sons get lesser titles and things."

"What do the girls get?" Ron asked.

Harry silently counted to two hundred while Hermione explained once again that females were treated as property by their parents and were used to arrange peace agreements, but that they very rarely inherited anything on their own. This included a brief history lesson on Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, as well as a nod to the current monarch as notable exceptions to the rule.

"Well, wouldn't matter much in our family anyway," Ron said with a shrug. "Girl or not, if they were going by age by the time they got down to Ginny, about all that'd be left is Dad's collection of electric plugs."

"At any rate, the oldest son got the mill, so things actually went pretty well for him. The middle son got the family donkey," Hermione said.

"Wait, a donkey?" Ron asked. "Of all the possessions they've got, he gets a donkey?"

"Remember, the miller didn't have much, so it's not like the son picked it over a set of rubies or something. Besides, a donkey would be quite useful and worth a fair bit. Normally it would have been used to turn the wheel in the mill so they could grind wheat into flour, so it was really quite important," Hermione explained.

"So what's the first son going to do? Pull the wheel himself?" Ron asked.

"I suppose he could," Hermione said. "It would make much more sense for the two older brothers to work together so the mill could keep functioning as intended. Perhaps they did. The story doesn't really say, only that the middle son got the donkey."

"Okay, fine, so we've gone downhill from a mill to a donkey. What's the youngest son get?" Harry asked.

"The family cat," Hermione says. "Then they threw him out the door."

"What?" Ron said. "Oh, I would have like to hear that conversation. 'Oy, I'm oldest, so I get the mill, and you get the donkey, but you, little brother, I never did forgive you for that time you got mud on my new broomstick when you were six, so here, have a cat and get out!'"

"Who knows? Maybe it was something like that. Families hold all sorts of strange grudges," Harry said. "Aunt Marge has a brother she hasn't talked to in forty years because they disagreed over a china pattern when he got married. Lucky fellow."

"Yeah," Ron said, "and there's Mum's second cousin, the accountant. They never did forgive him."

"For what?" Hermione asked.

"For being an accountant," Ron said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "I mean, really. An accountant?"

"What's so horrid about being an accountant?" Hermione asked, frowning. "Is he dishonest or something?"

"No, he's just an accountant. That's more than enough," Ron said with a shrug.

Hermione opened her mouth as though to argue the point, but she just shook her head, obviously choosing to pick her battles, and thundered ahead.

"In any case, the youngest son…," she began.

"Does he have a name?" Ron cut in.

"Not yet," Hermione said.

Ron also opened his mouth as though to protest, but shrugged.

"Okay, you let the accountant slip by. I may as well give you a pass on this," he said magnanimously.

"Thank you," Hermione said with a sigh. "The youngest son took the cat, who was a very large ginger, quite a bit like Crookshanks, put him in a bag over his shoulder, and went off down the road to seek his fortune."

"Bit sad that, really," Ron said. "Loses his father, his home, his job, and his donkey."

"But he did have the cat," Hermione said.

"Yeah, that's a comfort. Knowing cats, the thing probably wanted him to stop off and get cream and salmon, and if it was served on the wrong color plate or something similarly daft, he probably got a set of scratch marks for his trouble," Ron said.

Hermione screwed up her face in a disgusted expression that Harry thought probably warranted extreme caution. On the other hand, he couldn't help silently agreeing with Ron since almost exactly that scenario had happened at the Weasleys' home that last summer. Harry still had the scratch marks on his arm to prove it.

"The youngest son had just decided to make camp for the night and was feeling very hungry," she said, sounding rather edgy. "He said, 'I have no food in my bag, but I do have a cat. I suppose I must kill and eat him. At least I shall have a supper, but then I will have nothing left at all.'"

"Okay, I admit I was joking about eating Crookshanks," Ron said, looking a bit sick. "The kid's actually going to eat the cat?"

"He seriously considered it," Hermione said, "but then he heard another voice say, 'O Master, if you spare me, I think you will be well pleased with the outcome.'"

"The cat talks," Ron said wearily. "Of course. Why not? This was the first story that's been reasonably logical up to this point, but why spoil the record for being barking mad?"

"If you want me to tell you more realistic stories, I can read you some of Jane Austen's works or the Bronte sisters or maybe some Dickens, but I doubt you'd find those as fun to pick apart," Hermione said.

"Eh, Dickens only works at Christmas for me," Harry said.

Hermione gave him a surprised look, but shrugged.

"At any rate, the boy was stunned by the talking cat, and he opened the bag. He asked the cat why it had never spoken before, and it replied, 'I never needed to,'" Hermione said.

"Actually, that does sound like a cat," Ron said. "So what's it going to do?"

"Well, first the cat asked to have the bag for himself, along with the boy's boots, which were really rather magnificent, and a suit of clothes," Hermione explained.

"Uh… huh," Ron said. "The bag, boots, and clothes. Because all cats need those."

"Well, he did let the cat out of the bag, so it's really the boy's fault," Harry said.

Ron and Hermione simultaneously rolled their eyes at the pun.

"No, really, the cat asked for those three things, and the boy thought it over, decided he had nothing to lose, and gave the cat the bag, the clothes, and his boots. Hence the name of the story, 'Puss in Boots,'" Hermione said.

"Okay, so the bag is obvious. It's sitting right there. I'm guessing the boy was wearing the boots and now has to walk about barefoot, though technically the cat would still be half-barefoot anyway since the boy would only have two feet," Ron said.

"The cat walked upright on his back legs," Hermione said. "Usually in illustrations the cat's boots are rather too big for him."

"Yeah, but what about the clothes?" Ron asked. "The cat and the boy are the same size?"

"No, of course not," Hermione said. "The boy went to a tailor and had him make the cat a suit of clothes."

"He… hired a tailor… to make his cat… a suit…," Ron said slowly. "Where did he get the money?"

"He must have had a little bit saved aside," Hermione said.

"Right. So he's so poor he's considering eating a cat, but hey, he's carrying about enough money for a hand-tailored suit for his kitty. I'll just assume he spends all the money he has on the dress robes for the cat, who of course is nameless too," Ron said.

"Yes, to both parts," Hermione said. "He does indeed spend his last bit of money on the clothes, and yes, the cat has no name."

"Rather pointless giving a cat a name anyway," Harry said. "They don't come when you call. Mrs. Figg's cats only answered to the can opener."

"Maybe their names were actually Whirrrrr-Clink," Ron said, trying to do a passable imitation of a can opener and succeeding quite admirably, Harry thought.

"Do you want me to continue with the story or not?" Hermione asked icily.

"Oh, yeah!" Ron said. "This one's good fun."

Hermione rubbed her head as though she felt an approaching migraine and continued.

"Each day, the cat would go out with the bag and stand in the middle of the reeds on the bank of the river, and when a fine fat duck or goose or partridge came by, he popped the bag over its head and killed it," Hermione said.

"Does he really need the bag for that?" Ron said. "I mean, don't cats generally just kill things?"

"Yes, Ron, but it's part of the story," Hermione said.

"Fine, okay, he used the bag to catch and kill game," Ron said. "At least that's useful. He takes it back to the boy, right?"

"Not exactly. He lets the boy have enough to eat, but most of it he presents to the king," Hermione said.

"Huh?" Ron asked intelligently.

"Yes, you see the cat had a plan," Hermione said. "Each day, the cat went to the castle of the king, bringing the bag with him and whatever he'd killed that day, and he would say 'A gift to his majesty the king with the compliments of the Marquis of Carabas!'"

"There are so many things wrong in that paragraph that I'm not sure where to start," Ron said, "but for starters I'd say the king really needs to tighten his security."

"Well, he is a cat," Hermione said. "Not many of them are assassins."

"No, but not many of them talk, wear clothes, walk on their back paws, demand boots, or present gifts of recent killed carcasses to the king either," Ron said. "Somebody ought to get sacked."

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"When you put it that way, you really are right," Hermione said with a shrug. "Aside from that, I'm supposing you want to know what the cat is actually up to."

"And who the bloody hell the Marquis of Carabas is," Ron added conversationally, "if you don't mind."

"The cat was trying to get on the king's good side by giving him presents," Hermione said.

"So the cat wanted to ditch the kid and trade up to the palace," Ron said. "Not stupid, is he."

"No!" Hermione said. "He was trying to make the king like his master!"

"The kid from the mill is the Marquis of Carabas?" Harry asked.

"Well, yes and no. The cat made up the title, but at least the boy has a name now. Sort of," Hermione said, smiling as if this made everything crystal clear.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, and an entire conversation passed without either of them speaking a word. In those seconds, they agreed that neither one of them had any idea what was happening and that it was completely idiotic to expect otherwise.

"Okay," Ron said, "so the Marquis of Kumquats…"

"Carabas," Hermione corrected him.

"Right," Ron said, "is presenting gifts of fresh game to the king. So why does the cat have to wear clothes to do this?"

"He didn't want to feel underdressed," Hermione said, though she didn't actually sound very sure herself.

"Why don't we all just agree that the cat has the same love of fashion as Lockhart and leave it at that," Harry said.

"Great," Ron said, "now I'm picturing that smarmy git's voice coming out of the cat's mouth. I think I'm going to be sick."

"Honestly!" Hermione said. "Fine, I admit there are some plot holes and issues with characterization and nonsensical decisions and even serious problems with the national defense strategy of the non-existent country in which this takes place, but aside from that it's a very good story!"

"Let me guess," Ron said. "The book you read it in when you were a kid had absolutely adorable illustrations of the ickle pussycat and his ickle booties."

Hermione glared at him before saying, "What of it?"

"Fine," Harry said, "let's just get back to the cat's plan, shall we?"

Hermione looked at Ron, who was trying (and failing) to look angelic, but she collected herself once more and began again.

"This continued for several weeks with the cat arriving and presenting the king with the complements of the Marquis of Carabas along with fowls, the occasional fish, and even a brace of deer," Hermione said.

"Deer?!" Ron said, coming completely unwound. "The cat brought down a pair of deer?! How is that supposed to be possible? What's it going to bring next, a bear? The freakish talking wolf who eats grannies in one bite? Crikey, why not just kill a Basilisk or two while he's at it?"

"It's a magic bag, all right!" Hermione yelled back. "He uses a magic bag!"

"Not unlike you," Harry said, trying to get a little calm back.

"Huh?" Hermione and Ron said in tandem.

"You've got a magic bag," Harry pointed out. "The bag the cat has apparently is big enough to carry a whole pair of deer in it, so obviously it's got an extension charm on it, and for a cat to carry it, there would need to be a spell for lightening the load as well, wouldn't there? Kind of like your beaded evening bag."

"I thought we decided she got that idea from the magical box in 'Hotty McHotterson and the Weird Waterbuffalo of Love' or whatever it's called," Ron said.

Hermione snorted loudly.

"Let's just say it's an object that shows up in several stories and leave it at that," Hermione said. "In any case, the king was very pleased with the generosity of this neighboring marquis that he had never yet met, and the meat was so excellent that he couldn't help becoming very impressed."

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind a bit of venison and some quail on a regular basis either," Harry said. "Still, not sure I'd be accepting food from a stranger, even if I was really hungry."

"At this point, I'd take a bit of bangers and mash even if it had a gift tag saying, 'With love from the Malfoy family,'" Ron said.

Hermione thought about it for second, and then said, "I'm not quite that hungry. Yet. But it's a near thing. At any rate, the cat's plan was progressing well, and at last one day he saw the perfect opportunity present itself."

"For what?" Ron asked.

"That's just what the boy asked. You see, the cat had realized the king's coach was driving along the road that led into the forest where they were living and would pass by them in few minutes time. There was a lake nearby, and the cat told the miller's son to take off all his clothes and jump in the lake," Hermione said.

"The cat literally told him to go jump in a lake?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione said as though this were the most normal thing in all the world.

"Fine. Let's assume the apparent Marquis of Casabas decides to jump starkers into a lake because his cat said it's a spiffing idea," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "Then what?"

"It's Carabas, not Casabas," Hermione said, "and the cat hid the boy's clothes."

"Nice. That'll make an impression," Ron said.

"Actually, that's precisely what it did. The cat stood by the side of the road yelling 'Thieves! Thieves! My master the Marquis of Carabas was stopping to bathe in this lake, and a pair of thieves have stolen his royal raiment!'" Hermione said, though Harry noted her version of the cat's voice was starting to resemble Mr. Humphries' voice from _Are You Being Served_.

"Because that will accomplish what exactly?" Ron said, looking completely confused.

"Well, the king was delighted to meet the marquis who had been sending him such lovely food, and he was happy he could do him a favor by helping him out of the predicament he was in," Hermione said, "so the king gave him his cloak."

"The king, even though he's a bit of an idiot, is also a fairly decent sort of fellow if he's willing to help a friend out like that," Ron said. "Okay, I like him."

"I'm glad he meets with your approval. The cat was very happy to see his plan was working, but he cautioned the boy to say nothing. The cat said, "Oh, my poor Marquis of Carabas! He is so stunned by this horrible assault! My lord the king, would you be so kind as to have your coachman drive him back to his home?"

"What, the mill?" Ron asked.

"No, his castle," Hermione said. "The king said he would indeed, and he helped him into his carriage where he sat next to his daughter the princess."

"I take it back. This king's an imbecile," Ron said, his face screwing up in disgust. "He's letting some naked fellow he's never met before sit next to his daughter? Bonkers."

"I admit that there are a dozen ways this might not have ended well," Hermione admitted. "In any case, the cat, wearing his boots, took off at top speed down the road until he met a group of farmers out tilling their fields."

"The cat outran the horses?" Ron said in disbelief.

"They're magic boots," Hermione replied.

"Right, because a miller's son would have a pair of those hanging about along with a magic bag," Ron said.

"Look, I didn't make up the story. Just go with it, will you? It's already got the talking cat. Is a pair of magic boots so difficult to believe?" Hermione said, folding her arms stoutly.

"Yes," Ron said. "Yes, actually they are. But for the sake of finding out what's up with puss, I'll bite my tongue."

"That ought to last three seconds," Harry said quietly, but he grinned.

"In any case, the cat told the farmers that if anyone asked them who those fields belonged to, they were to reply 'The Marquis of Carabas owns them,'" Hermione said.

"Whom," Ron said.

"The Marquis of Carabas," Hermione repeated. "You know, the miller's son."

"No, I mean it should be 'whom those fields belonged to,'" Ron said.

Hermione blinked in surprise, then drew some invisible lines in the air with her finger, apparently drawing arrows back and forth from one word in the sentence to the others. When she was through, her face fell.

"You're right," she said, sounding remarkably like a child who'd just been told there is no Father Christmas. "Fields would be the subject of the subordinate clause, and it should be whom not as that would be the objective case pronoun. To whom do those fields belong – it's so obvious! How could I have made such a ridiculously horrible grammatical blunder!"

Harry was actually afraid for a moment that she was about to start crying, and apparently Ron scented danger as well.

"It's probably the stress and hunger," Ron said, patting her shoulder affectionately. "Doesn't the brain start to have trouble when there's a shortage of food?"

"That's true," Hermione said slowly, then with increasing panic in her voice. "It could be that the lack of nutrients is starting to have an effect on my reasoning abilities. Oh, Merlin, am I going to turn into a doddering nitwit if I don't get a decent meal soon?"

"Or maybe I just misheard you!" Ron said, backing away from her as though he was afraid she might explode. "Or I could be wrong, or maybe there is no such word as whom, or, or… Harry, a bit of help please!"

"Hermione, relax," Harry said. "It's not that big a deal."

"Ron just correctly corrected my grammar! I am massacring the English language like an addle pated baboon or a drunken Cockney cabbie or an American or something!" Hermione said.

"Hermione, did you manage to figure out what you did wrong?" Harry said carefully.

"Yes," Hermione said in a small voice.

"All right then. You simply misspoke. It happens to everyone now and again. It's fine. The universe has not come unstuck," Harry said. "Now why don't you go on with the story?"

"Yeah, before you have a complete meltdown, I want to know what happens to the naked man and the talking cat," Ron said, sounding perfectly serious.

"Sorry, just… I put a bit of pressure on myself sometimes," Hermione said, clearing her throat. "Where was I?"

"The cat told the people to say the land belonged to the Marquis of Carabas," Ron said promptly. "Oh, and none of them bothered to notice that a talking cat was giving them orders to lie."

"Yes, right," Hermione said. "In some versions of the story, the cat says the people will have a great reward if they say the lands are his, and in others he says he'll chop them into mincemeat or scratch their eyes out if they don't do what he says."

"Nice little kittycat," Harry said with a laugh.

"Okay, so now that we've learned the ginger cat isn't one to mess with unless you want to go blind in your sleep, what happens?" Ron said.

"Exactly what you might think," Hermione said. "The king's carriage comes past the fields, and he asks for the name of the owner, only to have everyone reply that they belong to the Marquis of Carabas. The cat does this over and over: through a forest, in a small town, in a vineyard, in a hayfield, and everyone responds that they belong to the Marquis of Carabas."

"Let me guess. The king was impressed by how wealthy his nude guest was?" Harry said.

"Precisely. The cat also got the king to take the most round about way, while he went straight to a big castle," Hermione said. "It belonged to the real owner of the surrounding countryside."

"And that would be?" Ron asked.

"An ogre. A particularly wicked one, too, and all of the people who lived on his lands hated him for his cruelty," Hermione said. "This particular ogre did have one unusual quality, though. He was a shape shifter."

"Like an animagus?" Ron asked.

"Not quite, it was more than that. He could turn himself into any form he wanted to, or so the cat had been told," Hermione said.

"Sounds like the Muggles got an ogre confused with a Boggart," Ron said.

"Hmm," Hermione said. "You know, that's quite an interesting possibility. I suppose that many Muggles would be frightened of ogres, and a Boggart might well change into one if the right person saw it. All that would need to happen is for another Muggle to come along and the supposed ogre to change into something else for them to get the idea that ogres really could change into other forms, never realizing the ogre itself was never really an ogre."

"Like Lupin's class," Harry said.

"Yes," Hermione said. "Well, in any case, the cat went up to the ogre, who immediately threatened to eat him."

"This cat gets that a lot," Ron said. "He must look tasty."

"But the cat was very clever, as most cats are," Hermione said. "The cat said to the ogre, 'Oh great ogre, I came to see you because I could not believe the tales people told that you can turn into any creature you wish. Is that so?' The ogre laughed and said, 'Indeed it is. I can become any animal I want.'"

"Nice that the ogre speaks English, but then again so does the cat," Ron said.

"'I cannot quite believe that,' said the cat. 'Could you change yourself into something so I could see?'" Hermione continued. "In a blink of an eye, the ogre had become a horrible fire-breathing dragon, so enormous that the room could barely contain him."

"Hagrid would love that," Harry said. "He'd probably want to adopt him."

"Yeah, Norbert could have a friend, you know, if they don't kill one another first," Ron said.

"Actually most dragons ignore one another's presence outside of mating season or immediately after their young hatch as precautionary measures for the continuance of the species and to provide the best defense against possible predators," Hermione said.

"You actually read _Men Who Love Dragons Too Much_, didn't you," Ron said.

"I thought it might be useful," Hermione said. "You never know if we might run into another one again."

"I am done with dragons," Harry said vehemently. "You can bank on that."

"Well, at any rate, the cat was really quite frightened, but he managed to stammer out, 'Oh marvelous sorcerer! What a truly amazing person you are! And yet, I must admit, I am curious still.' 'About what?' asked the ogre who was now a dragon. 'Well, obviously you can turn into a large creature, but you could turn into something quite small? Say, a mouse, perhaps?'"

"I think I see where this is going," Ron said.

"You probably do, but the ogre didn't. Just to prove that he could change into anything he liked, he transformed into a little grey field mouse. The cat immediately caught it and killed," Hermione said.

"And stuffed it in his magic bag to give the king?" Ron asked.

Hermione sighed once more.

"No, Ronald, he ate it himself," she said, rubbing her hand over her forehead.

"Oh. Well, Crookshanks made a present of a dead mouse to me over the summer. Left it on my pillow. Lovely surprise," Ron said.

"Yes, he does do that on occasion," Hermione said, looking at him curiously, "but usually only with people he especially likes."

"Exactly how do I get him to hate me?" Ron asked.

"In any case, the ogre was now dead," Hermione said, choosing to ignore him

"You know, he took an awful risk that the mouse would turn back into an ogre in his stomach," Ron said thoughtfully. "That would be very uncomfortable."

"Usually wizards do remain in animagus form if they are killed while they look like an animal, so it would probably still apply here. Of course, there are some exceptions. Werewolves, for example, take on a human appearance again if they're killed even during a full moon," Hermione said thoughtfully. "I suppose since the ogre isn't really either an animagus or under a curse, it was a gamble on the cat's part."

"I'll assume he didn't explode?" Ron said.

"No, he didn't. Instead, he went around the castle, putting things in order since the ogre had been a horrible housekeeper, and then stood to wait at the front door for the king's carriage to arrive," Hermione said. "When at last it did, he bowed low and said in a loud voice, 'Welcome home, Marquis of Carabas!'"

"And the miller's son just went along with it?" Harry asked.

"Yes. Of course, he'd never laid eyes on the castle and all its riches before, so he was very surprised, but he managed to try to act as though this were normal," Hermione said.

"Okay, so the cat commits murder and theft after getting dozens of people to lie, and the miller's son takes the castle?" Ron said.

"Pretty much, yes," Hermione said. "The cat presented him with the castle and the lands, thereby making him the Marquis of Carabas. None of the tenants on the land objected since the ogre had been so terrible to them."

"It's a good thing this king didn't get around to visiting his neighbors often," Harry said.

"The cat ushered the king, his daughter, and the miller's son into the dining room, where the ogre had been planning on having a large supper, and they ate a wonderful meal on golden plates," Hermione said.

"Like Hogwarts," Ron said.

"Precisely like Hogwarts," Hermione agreed, "though I don't think he had House-elves but just regular servants. The king's daughter was extremely taken with the miller's son, for he was quite handsome…"

"…and also apparently still naked except for her dad's cloak," Ron said. "Guess she liked what she saw."

"Ehm, I assume he changed into some clothes once he arrived at the castle, but yes, well, that could have been a factor I suppose. In any case the king proposed that the miller's son marry his daughter, and since the princess was also quite pretty, he agreed," Hermione said.

"No pressure or anything," Ron said. "Just marry my daughter who you met an hour ago."

"It is a ridiculously fast courtship, but the father had already seen that the Marquis of Carabas was very wealthy and would be a good ally for his kingdom, and among the nobility wealth and power were usually the real causes of marriage, not love," Hermione said.

"Eh, I think I'd rather be poor then," Ron said. "I'd rather not be married off to Pansy Parkinson just because she's rich or something."

"Say, do you think that's why Draco took up with her?" Harry said.

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't her sparkling conversation that garnered his attentions," Hermione said. "So the miller who had been so poor he owned only a cat, a bag, and the clothes on his back wound up with a beautiful castle filled with riches, lots of property, and a princess for a wife, and all through a bit of kindness to his cat."

"What happened to the cat?" Ron asked.

"Oh, well, there are two endings. In one, the cat lives forever with the miller's son, who's terribly grateful for all the cat has done for him, and the cat wears the boots for the rest of his days and is waited on hand and foot, hunting only for pleasure," Hermione said.

"And the other ending?" Harry asked.

"The miller's son throws him out a window so no one knows who he used to be," Hermione said, wincing.

"Wow, that's one ungrateful brat," Ron said. "I think I'll go with the first ending, which is probably what Crookshanks is doing at the Burrow right now."

"You really think so?" asked Hermione.

"Sure," Ron said. "Mum likes cats, and I don't think she ever really did get used to spending the days alone after all of us went off to school. He's probably grown to twice his size off her cooking."

"Oh, I do hope so," Hermione said, looking a bit teary. "I miss him."

"He's fine," Ron reassured her, putting an arm around her again, and in that moment Harry was certain Ron wouldn't mind putting up with Crookshanks forever under the right living circumstances. "No boots, thought. That would be taking it a bit too far. I suppose Mum might knit him one of her jumpers, though, with a big C on it."

Hermione laughed at that, and Harry was glad to see that she was feeling a bit better. They were all homesick, he supposed. Ron missed his family and his home, Hermione missed her parents and her cat, and Harry… well, he had no home to go back to, no family left. Even Hedwig was gone now. He supposed what he really missed was Hogwarts, and he wondered if they might go back there again someday. For now, his real family was right in this tent with him, and he supposed that made the cat-smelling, drafty old place home. In that moment it seemed like enough.


	6. The Wild Swans

The W(hat Is in These People's Tea?)ild Swans

"I want…" Ron began as he sat at the kitchen table, staring forlornly at the vacant cloth in front of him.

"Food, yes, we know," Hermione said, not looking up from her knitting and sounding more than a little cross.

Harry couldn't blame her. They'd finally managed to get a decent meal that day, a really rather princely windfall due to a cook at a local restaurant pitching a fit and tossing a whole leg of mutton at a butcher who was supposed to bring lamb chops instead. Thinking quickly, Harry, who had been rummaging a nearby dumpster from under his invisibility cloak, had managed to throw a Summoning charm at the exact moment when the mutton left the chef's hand. In the confusion of all the yelling and shrieking and demands for payment and declarations of never using the butcher again, no one had bothered to notice what had become of the mutton, which Hermione had managed to turn into a very passable lunch. It seemed a bit rude, really, for Ron to be complaining yet again when they'd actually done quite well.

Ron, however, just continued looking glumly at the table before mumbling, "No, not food. I want to see Mum and Dad. And Fred and George. And Bill and Charlie and Ginny. I wouldn't even mind a peek at Percy, the prat."

Hermione's needles stopped clicking at once, and Harry saw her blush in embarrassment.

"Sorry," she said. "I just sort of assumed…"

"Natural assumption. Any other time you'd have been right, but I'm just feeling rather homesick, I guess," Ron said, picking absently at a bit of lint on the worn out tablecloth.

Harry felt sorry for him and a bit jealous at the same time. He really didn't have a home to miss, and despite the cease fire between Dudley and him, family wasn't really on his list of things to look forward to after the Horcrux hunt was over. He had absolutely no plans to tell Ron, though, that he wasn't the only one who missed Ginny. Still, Ron was in low spirits, much lower than usual, and Harry couldn't help wondering how long it would be before a sort of constant cloud of depression swallowed them all up.

"Well, I do know a story about a family that reminds me a little bit of yours," Hermione said tentatively. "I could tell it to you if you think it would make you feel any better."

"Is it mental?" Ron asked, looking a bit brighter.

Hermione tipped her head to one side as if considering carefully before saying with a smile, "I'd say it rates on the Mental Meter somewhere on the level of Ashyweeper."

"Then by all means, let's have it," Ron said, moving to a nearby chair so he could see better.

"Once…," Hermione paused, and Harry knew she was expecting Ron to interrupt, "upon a time."

She blinked as Ron just continued to listen, and Harry was actually alarmed by Ron's nonparticipation. He must really be feeling low. The same thought had obviously occurred to Hermione as well since she looked rather alarmed.

"There lived a king who had six sons and a daughter, who was the youngest of all," Hermione said.

"Okay," Ron said, smiling a little, "I think I see the resemblance."

"To be honest, in some versions of the story there are twelve brothers, but others do have six, and the sister is almost always the youngest one," Hermione said.

"Twelve brothers?" Harry said. "I don't think Mrs. Weasley would have a shred of patience left with thirteen kids running around."

"Can you imagine if the other six were three more sets of Fred and George?" Ron said, now really grinning. "The house would have been blown to smithereens years ago."

"And then the smithereens would have blown up," Harry added.

"So, the father's there, but where the mum?" Ron asked.

"Oh, um, she's sort of… dead?" Hermione said, looking apologetic.

"Eh, that's okay," Ron said. "Mothers have a mortality rate like dragon pox in these things. Let me guess, there's a step-mother involved?"

"There is," Hermione said, "but she comes about in a strange way. One day the king is riding through the forest and gets very lost. He comes upon an old woman and asks her for directions, and she agreed to help him get out of the forest on one condition."

"Let me guess. He has to marry the old woman," Ron said.

"No, of course not," Hermione said. "He has to marry the old woman's daughter."

"Oh," Ron said. "Well, same thing I suppose. So the king just decides to marry this girl, sight unseen, to get out of the woods. This whole thing could have been avoided with a simple Four-Point Spell."

"Yes, but the king is a Muggle, Ron," Hermione said. "They don't have locator spells, though really there's no excuse for his not having a compass. But yes, he does agree to marry the girl."

"And I'm guessing she's got some sort of issues," Ron said. "What, is she an ogre or a troll or a banshee or something?"

"No, she's actually extremely pretty," Hermione said.

"Well, not so bad then," Ron said. "Well done, king."

"But there was also something about her that made the king feel very strange, like there was something deeply wrong with her," Hermione added with a glare that Harry knew was her way of trying to remind Ron for the thousandth time that pretty and good were not always the same thing, though personally Harry was grateful she wasn't about to give the same speech yet again.

"It's generally not a good sign if your bride-to-be gives you the collywobbles," Ron said, nodding.

"Even more suspicious, it seemed as though the young woman had been waiting for him when he came to her mother's house, for her bags were already packed and she left with him without so much as a word," Hermione said.

"Sounds like a set up to me," Harry said. "Was the old woman a witch by any chance?"

"You've got it in one!" Hermione said. "And so is the daughter, of course."

"Now that's interesting," Ron said, squinting into the distance as if he was trying to figure something out.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"The witch has a daughter," Ron said. "None of the other witches in these stories have children, well, except for in the one about the really hairy girl, and she's just a payment for her birth mother's lettuce addiction."

Harry snorted, but Hermione tipped her head to one side, obviously thinking.

"You know, you're quite right," Hermione said. "I don't think I can recall a single other instance of a witch having actually given birth to a child in any other fairy tale, and this one does inherit her mother's ability with witchcraft, so it's fairly accurate to the way magic is usually handed down in traditional magic or half-blood families. It's highly intriguing that the storyteller makes a point of creating a family background as opposed to just having the king meet the young woman instead, thereby at least partially humanizing the old witch through her concern for her daughter's future. I wonder if the writer might actually have met a witch at some point."

"Or it was just convenient for the story," Ron said, shrugging.

"Or that," Hermione said. "In any case, the king, feeling something was off about the woman, became concerned for his seven children and decided it might be best to keep them out of sight until he was sure of how she would behave with them."

"He's just not going to mention he's got better than half a dozen children?" Harry asked.

"That's not going to work," Ron said. "I don't care how big that castle is. There's some sort of a row at our house at least three times a day, and usually it's even louder than the ghoul in the attic. Unless the woman can't hear well, she'll suss it out sooner or later."

"Ah, but he doesn't keep them in the house," Hermione said. "Instead he hides them in a cabin in the woods."

"How deep?" Ron asked, looking suspicious.

"A fair walk," Hermione said. "Why?"

"Because Xeno Lovegood actually heard Mum when she was bawling out the twins a few years ago for not getting enough O.W.L.s," Ron said. "He sent over a note by owl wanting to know if we'd been attacked by Snorkacks. That's almost a mile away. So he better hide those kids deep."

"We'll assume he did," Hermione said, and Harry couldn't tell whether she looked impressed or vaguely terrified by Mrs. Weasley's vocal abilities. He was guessing it was a combination of the two. "The new queen had no idea she had seven step-children."

"That doesn't really seem right either," Harry said. "It's a pretty huge lie."

"It is," Hermione agreed, "but he wanted to keep his children safe."

"Then why didn't he just not marry her in the first place?" Ron asked.

"Because he'd given his word to the old woman in the woods," Hermione said.

"So?" Ron asked.

"So he can't just break a promise, Ronald," Hermione said, sounding rather sharp. "It was a matter of honor."

"Between breaking a promise or protecting his kids by stuffing them in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? At that point honor ought to take second place, I think," Ron said with a firm nod.

"But that's not the way Muggles did things back then," Hermione said. "It would have been a really bad breach of etiquette. Still… you have a point."

"So he abandons his kids in the forest," Ron said. "Then what?"

"Oh, no, he doesn't abandon them," Hermione said quickly. "He goes to visit them very regularly, almost every day."

"That's a bit better," Ron said, sounding placated. "Okay, I don't dislike him so much now."

"Unfortunately, that's what led to the trouble, though," Hermione said. "The new queen wondered where her husband went every day and finally she followed him in secret."

"Thought he had a bit of fluff on the side," Ron said, shaking his head knowingly. "It does look suspicious."

"I suppose so," Hermione said. "It would certainly have been a common enough situation back then. Most royal males had multiple mistresses."

"What about the royal females?" Ron asked.

"Oh, no," Hermione said. "At least, not as commonly. That was considered high treason and would have led to being executed."

"So if it was so common for the fellows, why would she be angry about it?" Ron asked.

"Just because something's usual doesn't mean that it stops upsetting people," Hermione said.

"Like when Mum gets upset at us for tracking mud into the house when we've been out degnoming the garden and forget to wipe our feet," Ron reasoned. "We do it all the time, but she still blows her top."

"Yes, Ronald, tracking mud in the house causes exactly the same level of anger and betrayal in women as marital infidelity," Hermione said, shaking her head. "At any rate, she saw the six boys come running out of the house to greet their father, and she was furious."

"Can't say I blame her at this point," Harry said. "As secrets go, that's enormous."

"Wait, where was the girl?" Ron asked.

"She was inside, tending to the soup over the fire, so she didn't come out to see him, and the queen didn't know she was there, which was lucky for the girl," Hermione said. "Well, at least that's the case in one version. In another, she sees the girl isn't as threatened by her."

"Threatened?" Ron said. "Of a bunch of kids? How rowdy are they?"

"Oh, that's not it," Hermione said. "You see, if the king had legitimate children with his first wife, which she now realized was the case, her own children by him wouldn't have any claim to the throne unless something happened to all of them, or at least all the sons."

"Say," Harry said, "didn't anyone else in the castle or the rest of the kingdom or anything know about the seven kids?"

"I suppose they must have," Hermione said.

"They just didn't say anything at all?" Harry said.

"The king probably ordered them not to," Hermione explained.

"I don't care how much he threatened them, someone would have slipped," Ron said, and Harry nodded in agreement. "That's unrealistic, that is."

"It's a fairy tale," Hermione said. "I don't know if you've noticed this yet, but they're not especially noted for their accurate portrayal of realism."

The two boys paused before they eventually both shrugged in tandem.

"Fair enough," Ron said. "It's not like that Picasso fellow really thought people were stripy, multi-colored collections of triangles and circles with two eyes on one side of their face, so I guess not everything has to be realistic to be artistic."

"You know about Picasso?" Hermione said, her eyes widening in surprise. "How?"

"Oh, ehm, Fred and George," Ron said, starting to blush. "They, um, lifted a book of his prints out of a Muggle bookshop once."

"Let me guess," Hermione said, smirking. "A collection of his nudes?"

"Uh, yeah," Ron said and turned a darker shade of pink. "They thought it'd be, you know, fun. But mostly it just made them really confused. Also, for a while they thought Muggle girls were blue and had single-sided noses."

Hermione sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose, but soldiered on.

"Well, it gets stranger from here out," Hermione said. "The queen went home and made six white shirts, one for each son."

"Aw, that's sort of nice," Ron said. "She wants to make them a present."

"Not exactly," Hermione said. "The queen cast a horrible spell on the shirts. The next day, she followed the same path through the forest to the cottage, and when the birds began to call out as though someone were coming, the boys came running, thinking it was their father."

"I'm guessing that didn't end well," Harry said.

"No," Hermione said. "The queen threw the shirts into the air, and each one landed on one of the boys so that he was wearing it."

"Now wait just a second," Ron said. "How can you throw six shirts in the air and have them just naturally come to rest so that the boys are wearing them? At the very least, that's going to take some participation from the kids, that is."

"Yeah, I've never had that happen," Harry said. "It'd be convenient, though, just being able to throw your clothes in the air and have them all land in place."

"Well, it happened this time," Hermione said stoutly, folding her arms, "and that's not even the strangest thing that happened with the shirts."

"Oh, I already figured that bit out," Ron said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "She poisoned the shirts and they're all dead, right?"

"No," Hermione said, looking aghast at the suggestion, though Harry couldn't help thinking that was rather rich considering how gory most of these were. "The shirts turn the boys into swans."

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

"You know, that might actually be worse," Ron said.

"Well, I suppose it would be rather horrifying to suddenly have yourself turn into an animal," Hermione said, "particularly if you don't even know about the existence of magic. In fact, I think the story probably hits upon the innate fear latent in the human psyche of losing the ability of advanced cognitive processes and having the inner ego cave to the forces of the animalistic id, as seen in some of the stories about werewolves, for example, though those are of course based in fact. That would suggest that one of the greatest shared irrational fears is the suppression of higher thought and a return to a pre-evolutionary nature. Added to that, there's the possibility that the human and reasoning side of the six brothers is still at least tangentially aware within the animal form assumed, or in this case forced upon them, and therefore they can have the reasoning capacity of humans to be appalled by their loss of their own humanity. Really, it's quite similar to what Barty Crouch Jr. did when he punished Malfoy by turning him into a ferret. That particular breach of protocol really should have raised more red flags concerning his fitness for a teaching position. As much as I loathe Malfoy, Professor McGonagall was right: Transfiguration should never be used as a disciplinary tool."

"Um, I just meant it would probably be worse than death for a bunch of boys to be stuck as such such girly birds," Ron said. "It might not be so bad if they were hawks or eagles or something, but swans?"

"For your information, swans can actually be quite terrifying and vicious, particularly if they're provoked by having their young endangered," Hermione said rather coldly.

"Harry? Back me up on this one?" Ron said.

"Sorry Hermione, but swans do seem sort of automatically feminine," Harry said. "Maybe it's just because that's Cho's patronus. In any case, I'd prefer being a ferret to a swan given the choice."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, in one version of the story the boys are turned into ravens. Is that better?" Hermione said, still sounding rather put out.

"A raven would be better than a swan," Ron said, nodding. "Actually, I'd prefer that to a ferret. So the hierarchy of possible animal changes would be, in order from most to least desirable, raven, then ferret, and finally swan."

"Wonderful, now I can't help mentally calling this story 'The Wild Ferrets,'" Hermione grumbled before setting off again. "In any case, the six swans all flew away, leaving their sister behind."

"Aw, now that really is sad," Ron said. "What happened to her?"

"Well, it depends on the version," Hermione said. "In one she's still quite a little girl, and the queen sends her to live with some peasants for several years while the king goes nearly mad trying to find her. Then, when she's sixteen, the peasants give the girl back to the king, but the queen tries to destroy her."

"Of course," Harry says. "So, how?"

"Yeah, this has got to be good," Ron said.

"Poisoned toads," Hermione says.

The boys blinked.

"Okay, I wasn't expecting that, but I'll give her points for originality," Ron said. "How exactly does she attempt assassination via Trevor's nasty cousins?"

"She's actually not trying to kill her outright. The queen waits until the princess is about to take a bath, and she slips three toads into her bathwater, telling the first one to settle over the girl's heart, the second on her forehead, and the third on the top of her head. The one on her head was supposed to make her stupid, the one on her forehead was supposed to make her ugly, and the one on her heart was supposed to turn her towards evil."

"Muggles really just do not get how magic works, do they?" Ron said.

"No," Hermione said, "though I suppose you could say that one is supposed to Confund her, another is a sort of camouflage spell, and the third is a form of the Imperius Curse."

"Okay, maybe," Ron agreed. "So what happened?"

"Nothing," Hermione said. "The three toads climbed onto her in the bath, but she was so good and kind and pure that they turned into roses instead and did her no harm."

"Uh… huh," Ron said. "That's… I think the word I'm looking for here is 'unique.'"

"She can turn toads into roses?" Harry asked.

"Apparently," Hermione said with a shrug.

"So is she a witch?" Harry asked. "Because it does seem like something she might be able to do with Transfiguration."

"You know, when you put it that way, you really do have a point," Hermione said, looking excited. "Oh, that would be interesting, wouldn't it! We'd have a good witch in one of these stories for once, though of course they wouldn't call her a witch since the term is automatically evil in all the old stories, but she does seem to have some rudimentary skills at least, and there's even more of that later in the story if you look closely enough. That's really quite refreshing!"

Ron gave Hermione a pat on the shoulder as she beamed happily. As usual, Harry noticed his hand lingered a few seconds past what would be normal, casual contact, not that Hermione seemed to mind.

"So, what does dear old Step-Mum do when the toads don't turn the daughter into an evil, ugly idiot?" Harry asked.

"The queen was furious, so she scrubbed the girl's face with walnut dye and smeared horrible ointments in her hair to make her look bad, then took her to the king," Hermione said. "He said his daughter couldn't possibly be so ugly, so he rejected her and sent her away into the forest."

"He doesn't recognize her because her face is dirty and her hair is untidy?" Ron said. "Ladies and gents, we have yet another winner in the Lousy Fairy Tale Father contest."

"Well, to make it a little less terrible, remember he wouldn't have seen her for ten years and the queen might have used magic to alter Eliza's appearance as well," Hermione said.

"Wait, she has a name?" Ron said.

"Oh, yes, I forgot," Hermione said, looking embarrassed. "It's only in some of the versions, specifically those based off of Andersen's take on things, but he does call her Eliza."

"Okay, two things. First, Eliza is a perfectly normal name," Ron said. "I mean, there is literally nothing odd about it at all. Am I right on this, Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I think there were at least a couple of Elizas at the school I went to before Hogwarts."

"So Eliza can join Jack the Giant Killing Moron in a very select group of fairy tale characters with less than insane names," Ron said.

"You said two things?" Hermione prompted him.

"Oh, right," Ron said. "Almost forgot while basking in the glow of normalcy."

"Your view of a normal name might be a bit tilted. Don't you have an uncle named Jklngszkrtpb?" Hermione said.

"Well done with the pronunciation on that," said Ron looking impressed, "yeah, and Aunt Gordon. But at least I know those are odd. In any case, who's Andersen?"

"I mentioned him once before. He was a Danish fellow who wrote several fairy tales or came up with new versions of them," Hermione said. "'The Little Sea-Maid' was one of his."

"Oh, yeah, the one about the bleeding tongueless girl. He must have been a cheerful fellow," Ron said, voice dripping sarcasm.

"Not particularly. He wrote a story about a homeless little matchgirl who hallucinates about food and having a family as she slowly freezes to death," Hermione said. "That's about par for the course with him."

Harry snorted loudly.

"What?" Hermione said. "It really is a sad story."

"Oh, I don't doubt it," Harry said, "but who on earth read that one to their kids at bedtime?"

"Victorians," Hermione said with a shrug. "Anyway, that's Andersen's take on the swan story. In other versions, the father comes by the day after the boys turn into swans and the daughter runs out to him and explains what happened, but because she's never seen the queen, she doesn't know who it is who did the charm. The king says he will return for her the next day and bring her back to the castle after he tells his new wife about her. After he leaves, it occurs to the girl that the wife is probably exactly who did this in the first place, so she runs off into the forest so the queen won't kill her."

"Smart girl," Ron said. "Either way, the nameless girl or Eliza or what have you winds up all alone in the woods. Then what?"

"Well, she wanders through the woods for a while, and finally she comes to a lake where there are six swans swimming," Hermione says.

"Shouldn't that be 'six geese a-laying' and 'seven swans a-swimming?'" Harry said with a grin.

"Oh, Merlin, that song is going to be stuck in my head for hours," Hermione said, looking horror struck. "Lovely. Anyway, as the swans were also wearing golden crowns, she knew they must be her brothers."

"Well, that's lucky," said Ron. "Nice that they got to keep their headgear, even if they lost pretty much everything else. It's a bit too convienent that they're still so close by, of course, but if it's the one where this all happens the next day, they really shouldn't have flown that far anyway."

"Actually, swans can fly up to 50 miles per hour under the right conditions, so they could have been very far indeed," Hermione said.

"You just know the flight velocity of a swan off the top of your head?" Ron said, looking stunned.

"European, not Afrian, and unladen only, no coconuts," Hermione said with a giggle, then when both of them stared at her with no reaction, she sighed and mumbled, "Note to self: after this is all over, rent _Holy Grail_ and force the boys to watch it."

"Okay, so the princess finds her brothers, only they're birds," Harry said. "Now what?"

"Well, the brothers started to blow on one another, and as they did so, their feathers blew away, and there they stood in the white shirts the queen had thrown upon them," Hermione said.

"They blew off their feathers?" Ron said, grimacing. "Seems messy."

"Yeah, and sort of an anti-climatic story," Harry said. "So they go back to the king and explain what happened and that's the end?"

"Oh, no," Hermione said. "The enchantment lifts for only fifteen minutes every evening."

"Well, that's bloody inconvenient," Ron said.

"In yet another version, they become human from dusk until dawn, which is a bit more like the lycanthropic tales, but the oldest versions we can find do seem to have the fifteen minute problem in them," Hermione says.

"Right," Harry said. "Because… no, that just makes no sense at all."

"Whatever," Ron said, waving away the strangeness of the spell as though he was becoming used to this sort of nonsense, "but she does take them to the castle and has them hang about until the father sees them for that fifteen minutes, right?"

"No," Hermione says. "The brothers say if they come anywhere near the king again, the queen will kill them on sight."

"Oh," Ron said, looking dejected. "Well, I guess that actually does make sense."

"But they're very concerned for their little sister," Hermione said, "and they want her to go away with them to a faraway land. In the version where it's been several years since she's seen them, there's actually a clause in the spell that says they can set foot on their homeland only one day a year, and she just happened to find them on that day. In the others, they just decide it would be better to leave."

"Probably not the worst decision they could make," Harry said. "Basically, it's sort of what we did, really, keeping on the run so we aren't caught."

"I suppose so," Hermione said, looking a little sad. "So the brothers weave a big net out of vines for her, and when dawn comes, she lies down in the net, they take the edges of it in their beaks, and they fly off with her across the sea."

"Pretty, but maybe not the safest way they might have done it," Harry said. "What happens if they turn back into humans only partway across?"

"Oh, they do," Hermione said. "There's this whole big race against time sequence where they're trying to make it to a rock at the halfway point across the water, but they forgot to factor in that they'd be flying more slowly due to carrying their sister. They just barely beat the setting of the sun, and they have to spend the whole night on a very tiny, slippery island in the middle of a tempest before continuing their journey the next day."

"Brilliant planning," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "I suppose they couldn't just use a boat as it wouldn't be nearly as batty. I take it they don't slip off the rock and die in the ocean?"

"No, they reach land," Hermione said. "Once they do and the brothers are human again for a bit, Eliza asks them if there isn't any way the enchantment could be undone. Then, depending on the version, they either say they don't know and she gets the information for how to fix things in a dream, or they do know and tell her, but say there's no possible way anyone could accomplish the task."

"And that is?" Ron asks.

"She has to make them another set of white shirts," Hermione said.

"Oh no!" Ron cried in mock horror. "Who could possibly make shirts! Why doesn't she just go down to the tailors and get them made up?"

"It's never that easy in a fairy tale, Ron," Hermione says. "She has to go out and gather prickly nettles that grow on graves at midnight, trample them with her bare feet until they become flax, spin the flax, weave the cloth, then sew the shirts. She has to finish all of the shirts in six years, and she cannot speak or laugh in all that time or else the brothers will be stuck as swans forever."

"Blimey," Ron said. "Okay, now that's a challenge."

"That is one seriously specific spell," Harry said.

"Being the heroine of the story, Eliza does indeed undertake the charm, which again shows that she might be some sort of a witch. Her brothers come to her the next day when they're human again and find her working on the nettles and not speaking. They're very sad, but grateful to her," Hermione said.

"As they should be," Ron said. "I don't think Ginny could manage not talking for six years. Might make it a couple hours, though."

"I think you're underestimating her," Harry said. "If you or your brothers were really in trouble, you'd have a time of it getting her not to do anything."

"You're probably right," Ron admitted, looking homesick again. "Of course, she'd probably just take out her wand, curse the queen with a truly spectacular Bat Bogey hex, and force her into undoing the spell, though."

"Yeah, that'd be Ginny," Harry said, smiling a little too fondly at the thought, and he found himself clocked over the head with a throw pillow.

"Oy, less drooling over my kid sister, yeah?" Ron said, though he didn't really look too offended.

Hermione shook her head at Ron's attitude towards his sister's private life but went forward, "So things went quite well for a time. Ginny… I mean Eliza. Now you've got me doing it, Harry! Eliza worked very well, and although the nettles stung her hands and feet until they blistered, she never spoke a word of complaint or made any sound."

"Poor kid," Ron said. "At least she's actually doing something instead of waiting around for someone else to fix everything."

"I quite agree," Hermione said. "Some critics point out that the removal of the character's voice is an example of the silencing of women by society, but I prefer to think of it more as her choice to remain silent to create a society that she prefers in rebellion against the status quo. And yes, she doesn't just sit about waiting to be rescued. She's actually the rescuer here."

"Like the mermaid with the bleeding feet saved the prince when his ship sank," Ron said knowledgably. "So Andersen may be a strange blighter with a weird tendency to add in details about foot pain, but his female characters do at least do things."

Hermione stared at Ron.

"What?" he said.

"No, it's just… I think you might be right. Andersen's version does play up the idea that she steps on stinging nettles in her bare feet and winds up blistered, and the little mermaid's feet stab her like pins and needles, and he even wrote a story about a girl who wore a pair of red shoes to church," Hermione said, looking shocked.

"What happened to her?" Harry asked.

"Her feet got chopped off by an ax," Hermione said, looking rather sick, "but that still isn't enough to pay for her sin of vanity, and the shoes with the bloody feet in them dance in front of her, blocking her from entering the church."

"Okay, that's nightmare fuel I didn't need," Harry said, turning green.

"I wonder if there's anything about feet in 'The Little Matchgirl' or some of his other stories," Hermione said in a tone that suggested her curiosity was piqued. "I don't recall ever reading anything about Andersen undergoing foot-related trauma, but perhaps he was investing his stories with some of his own experience."

"Maybe he had bunions," Ron suggested.

Hermione had already reached into her little beaded bag and produced a bit of parchment on which she was scribbling down notes that Harry was absolutely sure were research questions.

"Possibly," Hermione said. "That was really a very astute deduction, Ron. You've obviously been paying attention."

"Aw," Ron said, turning a pleased pink, "it wasn't anything. Besides, listening to you is a lot less boring than staring at the wall."

Hermione stopped scribbling and looked up at him.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm so glad I'm more interesting than a blank canvas tent sheet."

"You're welcome," Ron said, smiling and apparently not catching her sarcasm.

"So, we've gotten off topic," Harry said quickly. "Gin… I mean Eliza, had finished one shirt."

"Right," Hermione said, snapping her attention back to the story. "The six brothers and Eliza lived in a cave deep in a forest, and she would go out to work by daylight when her brothers were off flying as swans."

"Why'd she live in a cave?" Ron asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione said, sounding exasperated. "I guess she couldn't build a whole house alone, and with her brothers being human only fifteen minutes a day, they couldn't very well accomplish much. So they lived in a cave. Is that acceptable?"

"I suppose," Ron said, but he looked discontent. "Couldn't a swan use a hammer?"

"Swans don't have thumbs, Ronald," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "It's rather hard to operate a hammer without those."

"Eh, I see your point," he said, looking happier. "Okay, so she lives in a cave with her brothers."

"One day, as she was working, a few men from the king's court came by. She was frightened of them, so she climbed high into a tree to get away," Hermione said.

"Too bad those vicious swans weren't about," Ron said.

"Well, really, I suppose they could have bitten the men," Hermione said.

"Or pooed on them," Ron said seriously.

Hermione rolled her eyes as Harry and Ron chuckled.

"Yes, fine, let's all stoop to the level of First Years," she sighed. "I can't wait to see what you do with the next bit. The men wouldn't leave her alone and kept trying to get her to talk, so she tossed her necklace at them, hoping they would take it and go away."

"Well, it's a fair bribe," Harry said. "Did it work?"

"No," Hermione said, "so she tried throwing them her girdle, which was studded with precious stones."

"Her girdle?" Ron said. "Like the kind my Great Aunt Tessie wears? Because even if that was covered in rubies as big as the ones on Gryffindor's sword, I'd run as far away as possible from that."

"Not that sort of girdle," Hermione said. "This would have been like a fancy belt."

"Oh," Ron said. "That's less terrifying, then."

"The men still wouldn't leave, so she tossed them her garters, which were of fine silk," Hermione continued.

"Wait, I think she's unclear on the concept of making men want to leave," Ron said. "There's a pretty girl up in a tree, and she starts basically doing a strip tease to make them go away. With most males, that isn't going to have the desired result of having them leave."

"Well, considering most of the stories say she next flings her dress at them, you're not far wrong," Hermione said.

"Naked girl up a tree," Ron said. "Yeah, that'll really make them take off at a swift jog."

"She's not naked," Hermione said crossly. "She's still got her underclothes on, which would undoubtedly have been quite modest."

"Okay, so a girl up a tree in her knickers," Ron said. "I'm going to take a wild guess here and say the blokes stayed around hoping for an encore."

Hermione cast him a seething glare, but went on.

"The king happened by on his horse," she said, and Ron's jaw dropped.

"Her dad's going to see her sitting in a tree starkers?" he said. "Oh, wow, that is not going to be a good reunion."

"Not that king! He's on the other side of the ocean, remember? This is the king of the land they're currently in," Hermione said.

"Well, that's a relief," Ron said.

"The king was quite taken with her as she was remarkably beautiful," Hermione said.

"I've no doubt," Ron said. "Pretty, mostly naked girls don't grow on trees. Except, apparently, when they do."

"She is not almost naked!" Hermione shouted. "You've seen the pajamas I wear. Eliza probably had on something very similar."

"Eliza was wearing a set of striped pink and white flannel trousers and a tee-shirt with a picture of Paddington Bear on it?" Ron said.

She gave him a look of patent disbelief, rubbed her hand over her face, and went on.

"I'm not even going to question how you know who Paddington Bear is," she said, and while Ron was about to volunteer the information, she raised a warning finger for silence. "The king tried to ask her what her name was, using several different languages, but he received no answer. Eventually, he realized she was mute. However, he was still so overcome with her loveliness that he decided to take her back to his castle and marry her."

Harry and Ron looked at one another.

"That was a rather fast courtship," Harry said. "Did he bother asking her?"

"I suppose, but she couldn't answer, of course," Hermione said.

"Well, she could shake or nod, couldn't she?" Harry said.

"Hmm," Hermione said. "I suppose she could, but she doesn't. Perhaps that would fall under the idea of talking somehow, or at least she didn't want to risk it. She never attempts writing a note either, and being a princess she most likely would have known how to write at least a little, so I think it's safe to assume that she's not allowed to communicate at all."

"So, no sign language? No pointing at things? No sketches?" Ron asked.

"No, I guess not," Hermione said. "She really is remarkably isolated."

"That is deeply disturbing," Harry said, shuddering. "So essentially the king kidnaps her."

"I guess you could say that he does," Hermione said. "He takes her back to the castle, though she insists on bringing the one completed shirt and the nettles with her. However, she wasn't very well received. Many people in the kingdom were unhappy about having the mute girl as the queen."

"Well, considering she can't communicate at all, even if she is pretty, she probably wouldn't be able to do much in the way of royal duties, except maybe posing for postage stamps or something," Harry said.

"Not quite. There was one duty she could perform," Hermione said. "Once the wedding was celebrated—"

"Wait, exactly how did they handle the bit about saying 'I do,'" asked Ron.

"Yeah," Harry said. "It wouldn't be a binding ceremony without her consent, would it?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, coming up short. "You know, that really is a remarkably good point. I have absolutely no idea, unless they said something like, 'If you object, then leave, and if you accept, then stay.'"

"But wouldn't that still be communicating?" Harry said.

"Technically yes," Hermione said. "I'd guess that more than likely the king probably had the right to marry anyone he wanted with or without her permission, so he might have done away with asking her at all."

"Well, that's just plain rude!" Ron said.

"Got to agree with you," Harry said. "That is a very twisted king."

"We're unanimous on that," Hermione said. "If only we could have as easy a time reaching a consensus on who was going to do the washing up each night."

"I still say we should do it alphabetically," Ron said.

"Right, since using either first or last names you go last," Harry said.

"S'true," Ron said, grinning. "So, go on, the king and the girl who can't talk or communicate in any way somehow have a wedding in which no one bothers to ask her anything and yet this is somehow legal in the bizarro country they're currently in. Now what?"

"Eliza continues to make the shirts," Hermione said. "The king actually gives her a wedding present of a room made to look as much as possible like the cave she was living in."

"That must have been hard to gift wrap," Ron said.

"Let's just pretend he put a nice bow on the door and leave it at that," Hermione said, looking tired.

"Did he put in those stalactite thingies? What about bats? Maybe some well chosen lichens and moss for a dash of color?" Ron said.

"I agree it's strange, but it did make Eliza happy as she was able to continue working on the shirts in peace and quiet," Hermione said, sighing. "Oh, peace and quiet. Those are things I miss."

"So she starts making shirts again. I take it the king never notices her hands and feet are covered in blisters?" Harry asked.

"No, she wears gloves all the time," Hermione said. "She was doing quite well, and about a year later, she gave birth to her first child."

"Wait, she had a kid?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Hermione said. "As a queen, bearing offspring would have been one of her royal duties, easily the most important one, and she could perform it whether she was mute or not."

"You're telling me this poor girl went through labor without making a single sound?" Ron said, staring at her.

"Well, yes," Hermione said, grimacing. "I suppose she would have had to."

"Okay, there's a limit to how much a kid sister can be rationally expected to stand in order to free her brothers from a stupid swan curse," Ron said, "and that is far beyond that limit."

"Have to agree there," Harry said. "Ow."

"Agreed," Hermione said, "but Eliza is just that determined. Unfortunately, the king's mother never liked Eliza, and she decided to do something really horrible to try to get rid of her."

"Her mother-in-law?" Harry asked. "What could Eliza have even done to get on her bad side? She can't talk at all."

"Yeah, so she obviously didn't insult her cooking or call her fat or talk too much," Ron said, then tipped his head to the side, considering. "You know, in some ways, that's sort of a perfect wife, isn't it?"

Hermione looked almost murderous at this, and Harry quickly stepped in to stop an explosion.

"I think I'd prefer a wife who could tell me what she was thinking," Harry said pointedly.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Ron agreed, "though from what I've seen they sort of expect you to read their minds anyway. It would get awfully lonely, though."

Hermione had developed a tic in her left eyebrow by now, and Harry could see her moving her lips as she silently counted to fifty. Ron used the pause to retie his shoelaces, apparently not noticing.

"Okay, so the girl goes through labor in perfect silence," Ron said, prompting her to go on. "Then what?"

"The mother-in-law steals the child and claims Eliza killed him," Hermione said.

"Whoa," Ron said, his mouth dropping open. "That is extreme. Mum used to claim that Dad's mother didn't like her cooking, and she swears to this day that one Christmas Gran snuck into the kitchen and did something to the roast goose so it didn't turn out right to make her look bad, but this is a whole new level of bad."

"It's really horrible," Hermione said. "Andersen actually has the local bishop framing Eliza, but most of the stories use the mother-in-law. She even goes so far as to sneak into their bedroom and dab blood on Eliza's mouth while she's sleeping, claiming that she not only stole the child but ate him."

"Ate him?" Harry said, turning green. "I don't think even Vol…"

"Please, just don't say it, mate," Ron interrupted him quickly. "My nerves are already on edge, yeah?"

"All right," Harry said, rolling his eyes, "I don't think even You-Know-Who has a penchant for eating babies. He has to be a line drawn somewhere, and I guess that's it."

"Yeah," Ron said. "I'm pretty sure even if he had managed to off you when you were a little tyke, he wouldn't have tried to turn you into shepherds pie or something afterward."

"So, what did the king do?" Harry asked, staring at Ron and thinking he would probably never eat shepherds pie again.

"At first, nothing," Hermione said. "He declared that he didn't believe that his wife was capable of anything so terrible, and he ignored his mother's accusations, saying she didn't have any real proof."

"Well, at least he got one part right," Ron said. "I'm guessing that didn't go down well with Mum, though."

"Indeed it did not," Hermione said. "Eliza became pregnant again, and after the second child was born, the mother-in-law did the exact same thing, stealing the child and smearing the mother's lips with blood, claiming she was a cannibal."

"It seems like the castle really should have tightened up on security after the first go around," Harry said, "or is the mother-in-law meant to be a witch as well?"

Hermione considered this for a moment before saying, "It's not impossible. She's certainly every bit as villainous as the step-mother was, or the step-mother's mother for that matter."

"This story has a lot of mother issues," Harry said. "The only living mother figure in here who isn't evil is Eliza, and her kids keep being stolen, so I'm not sure that even counts."

"Now that you mention it, it really is odd," Hermione said. "The king once again doesn't believe the accusations. Of course, had Eliza spoken on any of these occasions in her own defense, she could have explained what really happened, but she couldn't."

"That is one tricky spell," Ron said. "And I thought Polyjuice Potion was a pain."

"Eliza continued to work on the shirts, and at long last she had completed five of them, and the end of six years was starting to get very close. She became pregnant for the third time and had yet another child who the mother-in-law spirited away in precisely the same manner as before. This time, the king's trust in his wife was starting to wane."

"Well, there is a limit," Ron said sympathetically. "There's only so many times you can wake up to find your kid gone and your wife with blood on her lips before you suspect something's up, even if she does seem nice."

"I suppose that's true. In any case, he starts to secretly follow her, wondering if anything she's doing is at all suspicious. At this point, the nettles Eliza had originally gathered ran out, and she still needed to finish the last shirt. So at midnight, she got out of bed and went to the cemetery to gather more," Hermione said.

"You know, we go to a school of witchcraft, and even I have to admit that really does not look good," Ron said.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "From a Muggle perspective it would appear pretty damning."

"It gets worse as there happened to be a group of ghouls sitting on one of the tombstones. It took all of Eliza's courage to go forward and take the nettles with them sitting there, but she did it. Unfortunately, the king saw her, and he at once believed the stories that his mother had told him that she was blood-thirsty and a witch when he saw where she was, believing that she might possibly even be a ghoul herself," Hermione said.

"Wait, ghouls? What's so awful about ghouls? I mean, besides the racket, the one who lives in the attic at the Burrow is actually kind of homey," Ron said, "and he was very nice about pretended to be me with spattergroit."

"Muggles don't understand what ghouls are," Hermione explained. "They think they're evil creatures that live in cemeteries and eat the flesh of the dead, so you see it looked doubly bad for Eliza since she'd been accused of doing fairly close to just that."

"Your lot really do have morbid imaginations," Ron said, wrinkling his nose.

"The king obviously thought that he'd been wrong and his mother right all along, and he had Eliza arrested and thrown in the dungeon. She was tried for witchcraft and sentenced to be burned at the stake," Hermione said.

"Well, that's not so bad. Witch burnings are completely ineffective. Binns taught us that much," Ron said.

"They're ineffective for actual witches, Ron. For Muggles, they're lethal," Hermione said.

"But she is a witch… ehm, right?" Ron said.

"I suppose if she actually is, there wouldn't be a better time to pull off some unschooled self-protective magic, but more than likely, no, she'd just die," Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said, looking glum. "That's not good, then. Poor kid goes through labor three times in complete silence, spends years with blistered feet and hands, can't even say whether or not she wants to marry the king, and she winds up dead. This is a rotten story, Hermione."

"But it's not over yet," Hermione said. "You see, the people hated her so much that the only blankets she was permitted in prison were the very shirts she had been making, and instead of straw to sleep on they'd given her the nettles. This meant she was able to work on the last remaining shirt up to the morning of her execution."

"Yeah, that's comforting. By the way, where are her brothers during all this?" Harry asked.

"Off being swans, I suppose. They were very upset when she was gone from their cave, and they spent a long time looking for her, but they hadn't been able to find her," Hermione said. "However, as Eliza was being carted to the stake, with the shirts and nettles in the cart with her, her brothers caught sight of her and landed around it, hissing wildly and putting out their wings, refusing to let it move forward."

"Well, maybe they are a bit terrifying and vicious," Ron admitted. "And then?"

"And then Eliza throws the white shirts over her brothers, each landing right around a swan's neck, and they all changed back from swans into human beings again. Well, all except the last brother. You see, she hadn't had time to finish his shirt, so there was one sleeve missing. He wound up with one arm that was still a swan's wing," Hermione said.

"Yeah, leave it to the youngest brother to always get the worst of it," Ron said, snorting. "Poor kid probably got hand-me-down crowns his whole life, and he's the one who gets stuck with a wing for an arm. That's going to get him laughed at for the rest of his life."

"Still, it's better than being a swan with one human arm," Harry said.

"I don't know," Ron said. "It'd be an improvement over just being a swan, anyway. At least he'd be able to use a hammer."

Hermione scrubbed a hand across her forehead but plodded gamely ahead once more.

"Eliza then shrieked 'I am innocent!' and fainted," Hermione said.

"Obviously that isn't going to work," Ron said. "She'd just done magic in front of the whole town. Everybody's going to know she's a witch now even if she didn't eat her kids."

"Actually, no," Hermione said. "They all believe her now and burn the mother-in-law at the stake instead."

"But… that makes no sense," Ron said. "Why?"

"Well, they just figured someone who was evil wouldn't be able to do something good like turning her brothers back to human again, and the boys spoke up on her behalf, explaining why she hadn't been able to talk and why she'd been so obsessed with making the shirts and why she was in the graveyard at night, and the king believed them," Hermione said.

"Okay," Ron said, though he sounded like he was still trying to work out how that was supposed to vindicate her, "then what?"

"The six brothers moved into the castle with their sister and her husband, and they all lived happily ever after," Hermione said.

"Where were her three kids?" Ron asked immediately.

"Oh," Hermione said, frowning. "I hadn't really thought about that. None of the stories ever mention them again, so I don't know."

"I'm going to assume they just wound up in some nice peasant cottage on the outskirts of town where they can be peacefully turned into swans or ferrets or ravens or whatever and live happily ever after themselves," Ron said. "At least that's what I'm going to pretend to assume."

"Yeah, and what about her father, the one who didn't recognize her?" Harry said. "Does he really have to live the rest of his life not knowing what happened to his seven kids and stay married to the evil step-mother?"

"Apparently," Hermione said. "There's nothing in the story that says otherwise."

"So the evil step-mother never gets punished for what she did wrong, but the evil mother-in-law does," Ron said. "I think there's a moral in there somewhere, but I'm not really sure what it is."

"It's supposed to support the idea of goodness and determination conquering all in the end, even if there are hardships along the way," Hermione said, then added, "but I admit, I don't really get the part about the step-mother versus mother-in-law conundrum either."

"But at least she gets to live forever with her five human brothers and one brother who's roughly 90% human," Ron said, then clapped an arm around Harry and grinned conspiratorially. "Maybe when Ginny gets married someday, she'll do the same and invite all her brothers to come live with her. That way we can all keep an eye on her and her new husband twenty-four hours a day in shifts."

Harry laughed at this, but he did shoot a desperate look at Hermione, hoping that she would give him some sign that she thought Ron was joking. Unfortunately, all she did was looking back and forth between them and give Harry an unsure shrug.

That night, as they were about to go to sleep, Harry just barely heard Hermione whisper to Ron from across the room.

"Ron? How did you know about Paddington Bear?" she asked quietly.

"I had one when I was a kid. Mum got it for me for Christmas because she reckoned it was sweet," Ron said, then added in a barely audible undertone, "I think it's still upstairs in the attic back home. Cute little fellow, well, after he got over that problem of turning into a spider."

Hermione laughed, and then Harry heard her roll over, though later he thought he caught her humming "The Twelve Days of Christmas" in her sleep. For himself, he kept awake for quite some time thinking of another brave and loyal sister and what she might be up to. However, he added with a shudder, all six Weasley brothers would most definitely not be living with them if he ever did get lucky enough to marry her.

N.B. It was only while writing this that I noticed for the first time that Andersen really does seem to have foot issues. The other story I mention about the dancing feet is "The Red Shoes." To answer Hermione's question about "The Little Matchgirl," Andersen does mention three different times that she is barefoot and her feet are freezing.


	7. The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Author: Meltha  
Rating: PG-13  
Spoilers: Through all seven books  
Summary: Hermione embarks on the tale of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" while Harry is feeling discouraged.  
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.

The Twelve Dancin(cerely Madder Than Hares)g Princesses

The days were starting to blend together for Harry. At the moment, he thought they were somewhere in Cornwall, but he wasn't completely sure. One vacant, lonely spot was starting to seem much like another, and he had no idea where they would be tomorrow, only that it would be somewhere else, and that place still wasn't likely to offer up a Horcrux or a way of destroying the locket. He felt as though he were trapped in a revolving door, always circling past the same place again and again, never able to step out into the world. It was bloody depressing.

"Are there any chips left, Hermione?" Ron asked hopefully.

Well, yes, Harry thought. There was that. They'd managed to cadge some fish and chips from a stand in a nearby town, and while the fish wasn't anywhere near hot when they'd finally been able to eat it, the mere fact it was food at all was wonderful.

"I don't think so," Hermione said, carefully looking through the oily paper sack. "Even the burnt bits at the bottom are gone.

"Ah well, you can't have everything," he said, leaning back on the old couch and patting his stomach.

Harry just looked at the pair of them, drew a deep breath, and sighed.

"You seem glum, mate," Ron said. "Feeling all right?"

"Not especially," Harry admitted. "I'd say I was homesick, but, well, I don't have a home."

He gave a half-hearted smile, attempting to hide the bitterness of the words by pretending it was a joke, and shrugged.

"Harry," Hermione said, sitting in the chair across from him, "you do know that Ron's family and mine wouldn't let you go homeless when this is all over, don't you?"

"What?" Ron said, looking up from the empty chips sack that he'd been attempting to rummage through in a vain hope Hermione had missed something. "Oh, right. Yeah, Harry, you know you've always got an open invitation at Mum and Dad's."

"And that goes for my parents too," Hermione said, then paused before adding, "well, if I ever get the chance to restore their memories and they come home from Australia, that is."

Harry gave them both a smile, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't as though the Dursleys' house had ever actually been a home, but it had been a spot where he hadn't been a guest—though an unwanted intruder, maybe. He'd even thought of going back to Grimmauld Place when this was all over since he did technically own it. If the Order still needed it, he could just kip in one of the little upstairs bedrooms for a while. After all, he'd certainly slept in smaller spots. But Sirius's old home didn't have many happy memories in it, and he wasn't sure he could forget enough of the bad ones to be comfortable there.

"Thanks," Harry said, but he could tell by their reactions that they knew he wasn't feeling any better, so he quickly added, "really, I mean, I appreciate it a lot."

"You're just upset is all," Hermione said.

"Aren't we all?" Ron said as he tossed the chip bag over his shoulder hopelessly.

"You do realize I'm not picking that up," Hermione said, narrowing her eyes.

"So? Let it rot," Ron said with a shrug. "Anyway, I think a story would cheer Harry up. Have you got something?"

"Please," Hermione said.

"Please what?" Ron asked, looking confused.

"Have you got something, _please_," Hermione said, laying heavy stress on the last word.

"Have I got what?" Ron said, still looking completely baffled.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Hermione grumbled. "Fine, fine, you want a story? I'll give you a story. Might as well since that appears to be all I'm considered good for."

"Bit put out, isn't she?" Ron muttered to Harry, but he didn't especially feel like pointing out the obvious once again for his friend. Harry was beginning to despair of Ron ever getting a clue as to what he was doing. He certainly hadn't been this shy last year with Lavender, more's the pity.

"I think I'll tell you the tale of 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses,'" Hermione said, and while she was obviously still highly annoyed with Ron, Harry noticed that she didn't really seem reluctant about her role as storyteller.

"Okay," Ron said, smiling pleasantly and nodding towards Harry. "Sounds good, eh?"

"Fine," Harry said, staring at a worn spot on the sofa where the stuffing was poking through and feeling listless.

"Okay then," Ron said, a note of panic in his voice. "Let's give this a shot."

"Once upon a…," Hermione began.

"Time," Ron chimed in, but he was still looking at Harry with concern.

"Yes," Hermione agreed, "in a kingdom far away, there lived a king who had twelve beautiful daughters."

"Uh-huh, that's…," Ron started to say off-handedly before he was brought up short. "Did you say he had twelve daughters?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "It is rather a lot, I suppose."

"A lot? When a family makes mine look tiny, that's enormous! That's nearly double the number of kids Mum and Dad have! How would they feed them all?"

"Well, he is a king," Hermione said.

"Oh, right," Ron said. "I suppose that really wouldn't be an issue. Probably has money by the roomful. Probably has it spun out of straw by creepy dwarfs or innocent maidens or something. Or maybe he has his daughters spin it. That'd be a profitable business if you could manage it, which of course you can't since it isn't possible in the first place, but then when has that ever stopped one of these paragons of confusion?"

"Actually, money is more of an issue in this story than you might think," Hermione said. "The daughters' mother had died."

"Or maybe she just ran out the front door and never came back, especially if a whole gaggle of them hit puberty at once," Ron said. "Can't say I'd blame her really."

"Well, that's not what happened," Hermione said with a resigned sigh, "though if you want to pretend it, I suppose it's a free country. Or it was at any rate."

"And will be again, right?" Ron said stoutly, glancing at Harry, who still looked exhausted. "Ehm, yeah, right. So, Dad's got twelve daughters. I don't suppose any of them have names, by the way?"

"Oh, ehm, no," Hermione said, obviously startled. Harry suspected she had been gauging his reaction to Ron's statement as well. "None of the versions of the story that I've read actually give them names."

"As there's twelve of them," Ron said, "I suppose we could name them after the months of the year going from oldest to youngest for convenience's sake. Say, it'd be something if there really was one born in each month. Good planning, that."

"I suppose so, though usually there's at least one set of twins in the mix," Hermione said.

"Oh, that's easy to fix" Ron said with a wave of his hand. "Fred and George were both born on the first of April, you know. Well, if Fred had been just a little less tardy, he would have been born on the last of March, so they would have had different months for their birthdays. I don't see why a pair of these girls couldn't have pulled it off."

Hermione raised her eyebrows, but she looked intrigued. Even Harry had to admit it was odd to think that the twins were very nearly born in different months.

"I suppose they could have at that," she said. "In any case, the king had a very great problem when it came to his daughters."

"I'd guess with twelve of them he had a jolly assortment of problems to pick from," Ron said with a grin. "Probably one of them is a drama queen, another pinches things from the local market, a third is always tying up the loo, and someone must have been having a sulking fit and not talking for days while her poor dad tries to figure out what he said wrong. Ginny did that once."

Harry had the distinct impression that Ron was baiting him to respond by bringing up his sister, but he decided to go along with it anyway and asked, "Really? What happened?"

"Oh, it turned out Percy had said something about no real Quidditch fan wanting to watch a match with the Holyhead Harpies because they were all girls, and then he'd gone on to quote a bunch of statistics and biology and stuff about why blokes are better flyers than girls are," Ron said.

In spite of himself, Harry couldn't fight a small smile.

"What spell did she hit him with?" he asked.

"That was the beginning of her legendary Bat Bogey Hex," Ron said respectfully. "I think it took her the better part of two weeks to suss out the details on it, and she really was just insufferable the whole time."

"I don't blame her," Hermione said, shifting her feet around so they were curled next to her on the couch. "Percy can be a bit of a prat."

"A bit? That's generous. I'd say it's more like he's very rarely a bit human, and the rest of the time he's a complete prat," Ron said.

"Well, lately, I'd have to say I agree with you," Hermione admitted. "However, the king's problem with his daughters was a great deal stranger than the usual adolescent difficulties."

"And that would be?" Ron asked.

"Shoes," Hermione said.

Even Harry reacted to this one. Of all the things she could have said, that wouldn't have been in the top thousand.

"Shoes," Ron said, nodding as though that were perfectly normal. "Okay, so, we've had a mermaid who trades her tail for feet and winds up bleeding all over her shoes. Then we've had Ashyweeper, who loses one shoe and marries a dunderheaded moron who can't recognize her without said shoe. Oh and that shoe, which is glass of all ridiculous things, winds up filled with clotted gore from her step-mum's attempts at impromptu Muggle foot surgery. We mustn't forget Puss and his boots as well, of course, because what cat doesn't want a lovely pair of trainers to go dashing about in, and then there's dear old Elisha, who could have used a nice pair of shoes so her feet didn't bleed as she was trodding razor-sharp nettles underfoot. Shoes. Of course. Makes perfect sense. What sort of painful foot mutilation are we in for this time?"

Harry couldn't help it. He had to smile at Hermione's reaction of ill-disguised horror.

"Ehm, none," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose delicately. "I suppose you do have a point, but the problem was just that the girls were each wearing great holes through the soles a pair of dancing slippers every night, and no one could figure out how since they were locked into their bedroom in a high tower each night."

"Pajama party," Ron said, nodding. "They probably were staying up late every night listening to the wireless and dancing about to the Weird Sisters or something."

"No, they were not," Hermione said. "They simply went to bed each night, and no sound at all came from the room until morning, when their shoes were found to be quite worn through."

"No sound at all?" Ron asked. "In a dormitory full of teenage girls, that's even more suspicious than the shoe thing."

"As if teenage boys wouldn't be up until all hours chattering away," Hermione said.

"Less likely," Ron said with a shrug. "After the first month or two, most conversations in our dormitory boiled down to 'Oi! Anyone seen my toothbrush!'"

"Fascinating," Hermione said, looking as though she meant just the opposite.

"Well, what did you lot talk about?" Ron asked, shooting Harry a sly look.

"Lots of things," Hermione said vaguely. "Lessons, homework, politics, plans for future careers…"

"Not to mention boys, make-up, fashion magazines," Ron continued the list on his fingers. "Oh, and probably shoes. Which brings us back to the story, yeah?"

"As if you lot don't spend all your spare time discussing Quidditch," she sniffed, but she continued on. "The shoes for the princesses were slowly bankrupting the kingdom."

"Seriously? They're shoes. How poor is this kingdom, anyway?" Ron asked.

"But think of it logically, Ron," Hermione said reasonably. "There are twelve princesses, and each princess is ruining a pair of shoes every night. Inside of one month, they're going through anywhere from 336 to 372 pairs of shoes, depending upon whether it's a 28, 30, or 31 day month. Multiply that into a year and the king has to buy 4,380 pairs of shoes, unless it's a leap year, in which case he's stuck with a bill for 4,392. At the rather paltry price of a couple sickles each pair, that's 515 galleons and 5 sickles for shoes per year, or 516 galleons and 12 sickles for a leap year. Even for a relatively affluent small country, that's a significant drain on financial resources, and if the shoes were more expensive, say in the region of two galleons each, which certainly wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for a pair of embroidered silk dancing slippers meant for a princess, well, the price would be nothing short of absolute bankruptcy."

Hermione said nothing as Ron and Harry proceeded to stare at her in open-mouthed disbelief.

"What?" she said.

"Did you just mentally calculate the price of the princesses' shoes for a full year using the wizarding banking standard… in your head?" Ron asked, sounding slightly terrified.

"I've been taking Arithmancy for years now," Hermione said, trying not to look too pleased. "It's not so hard."

"Blimey, it must be loud in your head," Ron said. "How do you sleep?"

"I find that calculating pi to a few hundred places helps me drift off," Hermione said, and Harry wasn't entirely sure if she was having them on or not. "In any case, the king wanted the mystery of the ruined shoes solved."

"I would bloody well think so," Ron said. "That many shoes makes Imelda Marcos look thrifty."

"How on earth do you know about Imelda Marcos and her shoes?" Hermione asked.

"Please," Ron said, looking insulted. "There wasn't any female, whether Muggle, Muggle-born, pureblood, squib, or otherwise who didn't hear about that collection and water at the mouth. Even Mum."

Harry gave Ron a slug on the shoulder and laughed, though truthfully he recalled Aunt Petunia having exactly the same reaction. Apparently, some things really did cross all lines of culture.

"Well, the king wasn't at all happy with his daughters' shoe collection, and he issued a proclamation to the whole kingdom," Hermione said.

"Those rarely end well," Ron said.

"Anyone who could solve the mystery of the shoes could choose one of the daughters as his wife and become the next king," Hermione said.

"Wait… how old are these girls?" Ron asked. "I mean, let's say good old January at the head of the line is twenty-four or so. What's December going to be?"

"Logically, maybe thirteen or fourteen at the oldest, provided there's just the one set of twins," Hermione said. "Of course the firstborn might have been older, but in these stories the legitimate age of marriage for most girls is almost over with by the time they're twenty-five or so, unless of course they're a widow marrying a previously widowed man, like with Cinderella's step-mother."

"Yeah, so the whole lot of them turn evil when they hit twenty-six apparently," Ron said, "but regardless of that, what if some pervy git shows up and figures it out and wants to marry the poor little thirteen-year-old? That's just wrong, that is."

"It's a foolish agreement, certainly," Hermione agreed. "Granted, some royalty did marry extremely young in the old days, but even so, he's being very stupid."

"Yeah, stupid," Ron said firmly. "Okay, so what happened to yet another idiot of a father and his shoe-obsessed daughters?"

"Several suitors tried to find out the mystery, but of course, they couldn't be permitted to stay in the princesses' bedroom all night as that wouldn't be proper," Hermione said. "Instead, they had to stand outside the locked door and try to deduce what was happening."

"Uh-huh, wouldn't want anything that smacked of impropriety before some strange man marries the youngest kid," Ron said, looking very stormy.

"It's the usual obsession with preservation of female chastity," Hermione said, sounding rather huffy. "Women have to be kept locked up so that there can't be any possibility of, ehm, physical intermingling with the genders."

"Either that or the dad didn't want some unknown weirdo hanging around his daughters' bedroom in the middle of the night," Harry said.

Hermione tipped her head to the side, considering.

"Alright, maybe he isn't entirely an idiot, then," Hermione conceded.

"Say, what are your mum and dad going to say when they find out you've been gallivanting around the countryside with a pair of boys without a chaperone for months?" Ron asked.

"Considering we're trying to save civilization as we know it, I think they'll handle the situation fairly well," Hermione said with a dry smile, "particularly as there hasn't been any sort of fraternization."

Harry could almost swear he heard her murmur "damn it," but he might have imagined it simply because he was so sure she was thinking it.

"In any case, the people who attempted the feat were always unable to come up with an answer, and then they were executed," Hermione said.

"Wait, what?" Ron and Harry said in tandem.

"Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that bit. If the challenger wasn't able to figure out what was happening after three nights, his head was chopped off and the next person took over," Hermione said.

"Just a little thing to slip your mind," Ron said, goggling at her. "Blimey, you'd have to be pretty desperate to try that."

"Or mental," Harry added.

"Six of one," Ron said, nodding.

"Still, in spite of that, many young men did try their luck, and without exception, each one was executed," Hermione said. "After a while, very few new suitors appeared, and the kingdom continued to wait, going slowly bankrupt."

"Couldn't the king just stop buying shoes?" Ron said.

"What, leave a princess wandering about barefoot?" Hermione said in mock horror. "What would the neighbors think?"

"Yeah, that was probably the only reason the Dursleys even gave me Dudley's castoffs. It would have looked bad if I'd been dressed like a House-elf," Harry said.

Ron rolled his eyes but shrugged.

"Then, one day, an old soldier made his way towards the kingdom. He was very poor, and he thought he had nothing to lose if he tried his luck," Hermione said.

"Wow, that's depressing," Ron said.

"Actually, it really is," Hermione agreed. "As he was travelling through the woods on his way to the castle—"

"What is it with these people and the woods?" Ron asked. "Are they trying to run into talking wolves with a penchant for cross-dressing or murderous witches in gingerbread houses or what?"

"Oh, no, it turns out quite well this time," Hermione said. "You see, he met an old woman as he went through the woods, and he shared the last of his supper with her because she was hungry."

"Well, that was nice of him at any rate," Harry said.

"Yes, and it turned out she wasn't just any old woman but a fairy," Hermione said.

"He's dead," Ron said to Harry. "That never ends well."

"You're forgetting that Muggles don't think of fairies like wizards do," Hermione said. "Instead, she told him, 'I know that you are going to the king's castle, so I give you two gifts and a piece of advice that, if you are wise, you will use. Do not eat or drink anything you are offered in the castle. The princesses will drug it to make you sleep.'"

"That's rotten of them," Ron said angrily.

"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," Hermione said before resuming her croaky old woman voice. "'These two gifts will help you as well. First, here is a key that will unlock any door. Second, take this cloak that, when wrapped around you, will render you invisible to any eye.'"

"Hey! That sounds familiar!" Ron said.

"Yeah, it does," Harry agreed, becoming much more interested. "How old is this story, Hermione?"

"Oh, probably back to the 1500s or so," she said. "Why?"

"The International Statue of Wizarding Secrecy… when was that passed again?" Harry asked.

"In 1689," Hermione responded automatically, exactly as though she were in class.

"So the story predates it," Harry said. "Maybe some Muggles actually did know about the cloak, then."

"I suppose it's possible," Hermione said, tipping her head to one side and considering. "I mean, there are other cloaks of invisibility, of course, but none of them work like yours. Well, except for the one in Beedle. That really is odd."

"It is," Harry said, and while it wasn't a clue to a Horcrux, something about it made him feel a little less disconnected from what he was trying to do.

"Yeah, so the old soldier shares a bowl of split pea soup with the highly dangerous fairy, grabs the cloak and the key, and heads to the castle, right?" Ron said.

"Oh, yes," Hermione said, pulling herself back into the story. "He was treated quite well, probably because no one had volunteered for a while, and that evening he was stationed outside of the princesses' bedchamber. Just as the princesses were walking into their room for the night, the eldest sister turned to the man and offered him a cup, saying, 'You must indeed be thirsty. Here, drink this and be refreshed.'"

"That isn't fishy at all," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "So, what'd he do?"

"He pretended to take a drink, but really he threw it away without tasting it. Then the princesses went into their room, which was locked with nine deadbolts, and the soldier pretended to sleep, listening all the while for any sign that they were up to something," Hermione said.

"And?" Ron asked.

"And after a few minutes he heard them moving around the room," Hermione said. "He waited until all was still again, then he wrapped the cloak around himself and used the key to unlock the door. He crept quietly into the room, and there he saw something extremely strange."

"The birds were all sitting around with those green mucky masks on their faces and those spongy things in between their toes while they were reading the latest issue of _Wizarding Teen Weekly_?" Ron said.

"You say that as though you've seen it before," Hermione said, giving him a highly suspicious look.

"Ginny's had a sleepover birthday party or two," Ron said, trying to look innocent. "It's not my fault if they forgot to shut the door."

Harry was relatively sure Ron never saw the pillow coming that clocked him in the head so hard that it sent him to the floor.

"As I was saying," Hermione continued, barely having mussed a hair, "the soldier saw something very strange. The girls were indeed all gone, but a great door had appeared in the floor, like the entrance to a cellar, and a set of steps descended from it deep into the gloom below."

'Nobody noticed a trapdoor in the floor before?" Ron said. "Didn't half look hard, did they?"

"It had been hidden before and didn't appear until the right time," Hermione said.

"Hmm," Ron said, squeezing his face together in thought. "I suppose that could be some sort of Transfiguration spell on a timer or something. Pretty advanced stuff, though."

"Reminds me a bit of the door Fluffy was guarding in first year," Harry said, a ghost of smile crossing his face. "Remember?"

"Yeah," Ron said, sighing. "Those were the days. All we had to worry about were a three-headed dog, some flying keys, and that plant thing that almost ate us."

"And Quirrel," Hermione added.

"And Quirrel," Harry said, nodding. "You know, in retrospect, the turban really should have been a tipoff. That thing really stunk."

"Not to mention being a serious fashion faux pas," Ron said. "Besides, having a dark wizard growing out of the back of your head is so seven seasons ago."

Harry caught himself giggling, but he did feel a little better remembering how they'd been through so much before for so many years. It made now seem less terrifying.

"So did the soldier go down the stairs?" Ron asked.

"He certainly did, and it didn't take him long to catch up to the princesses, who were going along in a long line with the eldest at the front and the youngest at the back. At the base of the stairs, there was suddenly a great forest," Hermione said.

"In the basement?" Ron said.

"Yes, sort of," Hermione said. "Well, it was sort of in the basement, and sort of in a whole other world."

"That's one big castle, anyway," Ron said.

"But what was even more extraordinary was the forest wasn't a normal one at all. Instead, every tree's leaves were the purest silver shining under the moonlight," Hermione said.

"You mean they were silver colored?" Ron asked.

"No, I mean they were actual, literal silver," Hermione said.

"Be noisy, that," Ron said. "A good breeze comes along and those things are really going to be clattering away."

"It's supposed to be a romantic image, Ronald, obviously wasted on you," Hermione said. "The old soldier followed close behind the youngest sister, and at one point he accidentally trod upon her gown, making her cry out."

"Uh-oh," Ron said. "Not good."

"The oldest sister called out, 'What is wrong?' and the youngest responded, 'It felt just as though someone had stepped upon my dress!'" Hermione said.

"But there was no one there to be seen, right?" Ron said.

"Correct, and the oldest sister chided her for making them late when she had probably just snagged her petticoat on a fallen branch," Hermione said.

"Chided?" Ron said, giving her a look.

"It means she scolded her," Hermione explained.

"Yeah, I know that, but who ever says chided? That just seems a bit too posh," Ron said.

Hermione gave him a freezing look then plodded gamely on.

"The princesses continued through the forest, and the trees changed from the grove of silver trees to another that was full of trees whose leaves were made of gold," Hermione said.

"Okay, this is a very useful basement to have," Ron said. "Silver trees, then gold ones. All you'd have to do is grab a rake and rubbish sack and you'd be set for life in about three minutes."

"True, but things became even stranger," Hermione said, "for after that the forest changed again. At first the soldier thought that ice decorated each branch and winter had come, but he was wrong. The branches of the trees were covered in diamonds."

"Pretty. Sounds almost like an ice storm came through or something," Ron said.

"Yes, the writer might have seen one and based the idea off of that," Hermione agreed. "But soon the princesses came to the bank of a great, black lake and stood upon the bank expectantly, as though they were in a trance. The soldier waited in the shadows of the trees to see what would happen. Soon, out of the darkness, he could just make out twelve boats being rowed across the water towards them."

"I don't suppose there's a castle on the other side of the lake, is there?" Ron asked.

"Actually, yes, now that you mention it," Hermione said. "Why?"

"Taking boats across the lake at night to a castle? That doesn't sound familiar to you at all?" Ron asked.

Hermione and Harry both gasped.

"Blimey, Ron, that really does sound like how the First Years get to Hogwarts on their first night there," Harry said.

"Spookily similar," Ron said. "So each princess gets in a boat, I take it?"

"Yes," Hermione said, "and this is where the story goes two different ways. In one version, there's a handsome prince in each boat, and each prince rows a princess across the water."

"And in the other?" Ron asked.

"Each boat has a terrible demon in it acting as the oarsman," Hermione said.

"That's significantly less appealing," Ron said. "So what's our boy do?"

"He jumped into the boat of the youngest princess, and the oarsman of the boat found that he had to row much harder than usual to keep up with the others, but he couldn't figure out why," Hermione said.

"Probably thought she'd had too much to eat at dinner that night," Ron said.

"I doubt she could have eaten enough to explain the weight of a full grown man," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, but the way girls talk, if they eat too much they feel guilty enough to think they did," Ron said.

"That's… actually that's probably true in some cases," Hermione said. "When they got to the other side of the lake, the princes or demons helped the princesses to disembark and took them into the brightly lit castle."

"Where they were Sorted," Ron said firmly.

"Where they began to dance," Hermione said. "There was an orchestra made up of instruments that played themselves, and the princesses whirled across the floor in dance after dance with their escorts, tune after tune, hour after hour without rest."

"And the soldier probably just stuck by the buffet table and the punch bowl, being a wallflower," Ron said.

"At long last, each of the princesses had worn a hole through the soles of her silk dancing slippers, and this was the cue for their partners to take them back to the boats and ferry them back across the lake," Hermione said.

"Their shoes were silk?" Ron asked.

"Or satin," Hermione said. "The stories go either way."

"That really doesn't seem sensible. You couldn't possibly wear a shoe with a silk sole for very long anyway. Even if they weren't going out dancing with demon princes all night every night, those shoes would still be falling apart every couple of days at the most."

"You know, that's a good point," Hermione said. "I hadn't really thought of that before."

"Now, if you wanted to try to get some shoes that would last, try a pair of those platform shoes Fleur wore last summer. It'd take a good fifty years to wear a hole in those things," Ron said.

"You noticed her shoes?" Hermione said, and Harry thought she sounded a little sharp.

"Ehm, well, who wouldn't with those things," Ron said, sounding a little embarrassed. "Harry, you noticed Fleur's shoes, didn't you?"

"Yes, absolutely," Harry lied immediately. He knew when his best friend was silently pleading with him for help. "Yeah, they were, um, great big tall things. Stood out a mile."

"I suppose they did," Hermione said, sounding like she didn't really believe him, then continued. "The soldier leapt into the youngest princess's boat once again, and then he followed the sisters back through the woods. When they got to the forest of the silver leaves, he plucked one small branch and hid it beneath his cloak. It seemed as though the youngest sister had heard something when he snapped the twig, for she looked up at once, her eyes searching through the shadows, but she saw nothing."

"It seems like the youngest one is the one who's paying the most attention," Ron said.

"I agree," Hermione said. "When at last they had climbed to the top of the stairs, the princesses exited once again into the bedroom, and they were so tired that when they lay down on their beds, they fell at once into a deep sleep, never noticing the door had been unlocked. As for the soldier, he managed to slip in behind the last sister just before the trapdoor closed silently. He stationed himself outside the door, locked it once more, and pretended to be asleep in the chair before the entrance to their chamber."

"Well, there's a lot of coincidences there, but considering they just came back from a forest full of silver, gold, and diamond trees where they did the Hokey Pokey with a bunch of possibly demonic princes, I'll let that slide," Ron said.

"The Hokey Pokey?" Harry said, staring at him. "How would you know about the Hokey Pokey of all things?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Ron asked, looking confused.

"Well, it's a Muggle dance, isn't it?" Harry said.

"It is?" Ron said, looking surprised. "Huh. I guess the Muggles stole it, then. That's an old wizarding dance, that is. It's probably based on the old incantation 'hocus pocus' and some sort of spell that involved arm and leg movements to cast it. No one's quite sure what outcome the original wizard who came up with it was going for, but somewhere along the way he decided it was just plain fun to do and went with it."

"Seriously?" Hermione said, looking stunned.

"Of course not!" Ron said, laughing. "I can't believe you fell for that one! No, Dean Thomas mentioned it once when McGonagall was teaching us to dance for the Yule Ball. I dared him to do it at the actual ball, but he said no. Too bad. Would have made a ruddy wonderful moment for Creevy to take a picture."

Harry practically choked he was laughing so hard, and Hermione rolled her eyes, sighed, and continued gamely on.

"The next morning, the princesses unlocked their bedroom door, and the eldest asked the soldier how he had fared. 'Well enough,' he said, and at this she frowned. The princesses went down to breakfast, and then, as was customary, the gardeners gave them their morning bouquets," Hermione said.

"They get flowers every morning?" Ron asked. "Bit weird that the king gets his knickers in a twist over shoes but hands out twelve bouquets of flowers a day like it's nothing, innit?"

"Not really," Hermione explained. "It would have been a custom among royalty or anyone who could afford it back then since, well, most Muggles didn't smell very pleasant. They only bathed once in a great while since it took rather a lot of work. They would have had to haul buckets of water inside and then warm it before it could be used, and then the bathwater was usually passed around to everyone in the family by order of age from oldest to youngest before it was dumped out."

"Ew," Ron and Harry chorused together.

"Yeah, I'm not sure which would be worse, smelling bad or getting to be ninth in line after eight other smelly people had already sat in the bathwater," Ron said.

"It wasn't a pleasant experience, I'm sure," Hermione said. "Added on to that, the soap they used probably smelled terrible, and the water was most likely pretty filthy to begin with. People didn't bathe much. In fact, many people thought it was unlucky to have a bath any time other than Christmas or Easter."

"Well, they must have been fresh as a daisy come Easter, what with having taken a bath only four months or so earlier," Ron said, "or however long the distance is between Christmas and Easter."

"It's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox," Hermione said automatically, "ranging from March 22 to April 25."

Ron blinked.

"You're scary," he said.

"Thank you, I think," Hermione said. "Anyway, that was why people carried bouquets or wore perfume or pomanders full of ambergris or civet."

"Amber what and civic who?" Ron asked.

"Oh, they're both perfume-type things," Hermione said with a wave of her hand.  
Ambergris is a substance in a whale's digestive tract, and civet, or more properly civetone, is a secretion from the civet cat's anal glands. Both are supposed to smell quite pleasant, but it's all highly cruel to the animals."

"So to smell better, they carried around whale poo and cat poo?" Ron said, looking green.

"While that's not entirely accurate biologically, you've got the general idea," Hermione said, "but our princesses were using bouquets."

"Yeah, well, that's better," Ron said, still looking ill. "Suddenly, I'm kind of glad we ran out of chips."

"Anyway, the soldier wrapped himself up in the invisibility cloak and carefully inserted the single twig from the silver forest into the bouquet of the youngest sister when the gardener wasn't looking," Hermione said.

"Uh-oh," Ron said, grinning. "Bet that didn't go down well with January through November."

"Actually, when the panicked youngest girl showed her oldest sister, instead of realizing the obvious fact that someone had followed them down to their secret castle, the eldest accused her of being careless and that she must have had a few leaves on her dress still that somehow fell into her bouquet, for nothing else could explain it," Hermione said.

Ron scrunched up his face again, then shook his head.

"Harry, any idea how that would work in any conceivable way at all?" Ron asked.

"It does seem like it would be pretty random," Harry said. "Then again, one time Dudley walked around for hours with a half-eaten lolly he'd forgot about sticking out of his back pocket. Finally, he sat on it at the dinner table and screamed blue murder when it poked him in the bum. It took Aunt Petunia half an hour to calm him down, and then I got sent to my cupboard because they thought I'd done it somehow."

"Yeah, well, from what you've told us in the past, after you went to Hogwarts they blamed you for the weather, the stock market, the aphids in the rosebushes, the price of petrol, and the Spice Girls," Ron said with a shrug. "All things considered, that's probably the least unlikely."

Hermione squinted for a moment, then shook her head.

"What?" Ron asked. "Trying to figure out whether that's really possible?"

"Oh, it's completely possible to do via a slightly tweaked summoning charm," Hermione said. "No, I was just trying to figure out if 'least unlikely' was a double negative or merely the reverse superlative form of the adverb. I think you're actually safe there."

"Oh, good," Ron said. "Forget Deatheaters. I'm really concerned about the Grammar Police breaking in and accusing me of crimes against the language. Anyway, Jan decides not to pay any attention to her kid sister's weird floral warning from the soldier, then what?"

"Jan?" Harry asked.

"Well, January's got to have a nickname, yeah?" Ron said logically. "I figure they're called Jan, Brewie, Mar, April and May are the twins, June gets a normal name too, then Julie, Gusty, Temmy, Toby, Nova, and Dessie."

Hermione stared at him.

"Gusty, Temmy, Toby, Nova, and Dessie?" she said slowly in disbelief.

"Hey, I didn't name the months of the year. Don't blame me," Ron said, grinning.

"I'll endeavor not to," Hermione said. "At any rate, that night, the exact same thing happened again. The soldier threw away the drink when no one was looking, feigned sleep, unlocked the door, and followed them through the three forests, across the lake, and to the enchanted castle. Once again as the princesses returned home, he broke a twig from a tree, this time in the forest of gold, and once again Dessie, damn, I mean the youngest sister heard him, though everyone thought she was making it up."

"Let me guess," Ron asked. "She gets the branch in her bouquet again."

"Exactly," Hermione said, "and this time the oldest sister took the threat more seriously. That night, when she brewed the potion to make him sleep…"

"Draught of Living Death," Ron interrupted her.

"Well, it could be," Hermione reasoned. "It doesn't seem quite that strong, though, since it only lasted a few hours. However, that wasn't what she poured the third night. Instead, she laced the wine with poison."

"Oi! That's cheating!" Ron said indignantly.

"I suppose so," Hermione said, "but of course, the soldier was far too clever to drink it. Once again he followed them under his cloak to the castle, but when they arrived, something quite different occurred."

"They decided to have a game of chess instead?" Ron asked.

Hermione gave him a withering look before continuing with, "No, the soldier watched the princesses dance with their partners again, but he decided to bring back a cup from the great feasting table in the hall as proof of what had happened. However, the moment he grasped its stem, a great rumbling was heard."

"Rumblings are rarely good things," Ron said.

"Quite. Suddenly, the castle began to fall to bits around them, and the princesses and their escorts and the hidden soldier ran for the boats as fast as they could," Hermione said.

"No small thing in shoes full of holes," Ron said. "Did they make it?"

"They did," Hermione said, nodding, "but they had to row as fast as they could for the forest bank because the castle was being pulled down into the water and creating a great whirlpool. No sooner had they set foot on dry land than the trees began to shake violently, falling to pieces around them. The soldier took one last branch from the diamond forest, which even the youngest did not hear in all the tumult, and the princesses raced with all speed back through the forest and up the great flight of stairs."

"What about the princes or demons or whatever they were?" asked Harry.

"They disappeared as soon as they returned the princesses to the forest," Hermione said.

"Apparated," Ron said knowingly. "They probably got their licenses already, but maybe none of the girls had passed the test yet."

"I… oh, maybe," Hermione said hopelessly. "In any case, no sooner had the last sister climbed the last step of the stairs, the soldier just on her heels, when a great crashing noise signaled that the whole underground kingdom had collapsed upon itself."

"What a waste," Ron said. "A whole country where money really did grow on trees. Too bad the Forbidden Forest around our castle doesn't have that."

"That we know of," Harry said, looking curious.

"Huh, yeah," Ron said. "I'm sure there's a whole load of stuff in there no one's ever seen, or at least seen and lived long enough to tell anyone about. Anyway, the princesses' little party looks like it's over. Then what?"

"Terrified by what they had seen, they fell down exhausted on their beds, and the soldier crept back outside once more, the branch and the cup hidden beneath his cloak." Hermione said.

Harry frowned, but he said nothing, holding his tongue as an idea started to form in his mind.

"The next morning, the king called for the soldier to come forward and explain the mystery or be executed," Hermione continued. "To the king's surprise, the soldier told the tale of the secret kingdom, the mysterious suitors, and the princesses who had danced holes in their slippers every night. As proof, he held up the golden cup, and he pointed to the bouquet of the youngest, saying, 'And within those flowers, you shall find a sprig of diamonds from the forest, just as there was one of silver and gold in the days before. I plucked them myself, just as I stole the cup, making the enchantment fall apart.'"

"Ha! Bet that went over well!" Ron said.

"The sisters admitted that it was all true, and of course this is where the story gets muddled between all the different versions again." Hermione said.

"Of course," Ron said. "They always do."

"In some, the princesses had been under an enchantment the whole time and were unable to tell anyone what was happening until someone broke the spell. Sometimes their escorts were real princes who were under a similar enchantment. None of the versions of the story that I've read explains who worked the enchantment or why, though," Hermione said.

"Oh, that's easy," Ron said, waving his hand airily. "It was the old woman the soldier met in the forest, the one with the cloak, the key, and the advice. She was probably just a bored fairy, and after she'd had enough fun, she gave him the chance to undo it. They don't really need much of a reason, or any, if it gets down to it."

"You know, that's extremely logical," Hermione said. "If the fairy is behind it, the story would come full circle then, and the loose ends would pretty much all be tied up. That's very, very good Ron."

"It's nothing," he said, though Harry noticed he was blushing a bit.

"Well, in the versions where there was an enchantment, the princes, as punishment for dancing with the princesses every night, have to spend as many nights in jail as they did dancing," Hermione said.

"That's a bit harsh as they were under a spell too," Ron said.

"Imperius curse," Harry muttered, looking up suddenly.

Hermione's hands went to her mouth as she gasped.

"Oh, Harry! You're right! Even think of when Crouch first showed us the spell! He made the spider—"

"Dance," Ron finished, looking a little terrified. "Blimey, that is really disturbing."

All three of them shuddered for nearly a full minute before Hermione continued.

"Yes, well, the soldier is asked which of the princesses he wants to marry," Hermione said.

"Well, obviously, it's the youngest," Ron said. "Disgusting, that."

"No, actually, in almost every story he asks for the oldest, saying he's getting on in years and she would match him best," Hermione said.

"Okay, I did not see that one coming," Ron said. "So he picked Jan over Dessie, even though she tried to kill him. I suppose all things considered that's pretty decent of him."

"Except, of course, that no one asked her if she wanted to marry him," Hermione pointed out.

"True, but it's still better than having him marry some little kid," Ron said.

"Well, put that way, I see your point," Hermione said. "Then, well, the story can end a couple different ways. In both, the soldier marries the princess and is next in line to throne."

"But?" Ron prompted.

"Well, in some, that's it, and he lives in the castles with the other sisters until they eventually are married off, many of them to the suitors they had danced with at the castle," Hermione said.

"I'm guessing that's the versions where the princes aren't great ugly demons or something," Ron said.

"Yeah, that wouldn't make for the most picturesque ending," Harry said.

"No," Hermione agreed. "You're right. That's only in the versions where the princes were human. In the others, where they were demons, the king has the other eleven daughters executed in the place of the soldier."

"What?!" Ron and Harry both said.

"That outrageous!" Ron said, really upset. "If they really were under the Imperius, then it wasn't their ruddy fault! He just outright kills Brewie through Dessie?"

"Yes," Hermione said, "it's supposed to be just punishment for the other suitors who tried to find out their secret and were killed for it."

"Well, I should have known there was going to be something particularly nasty sooner or later," Ron said grimly. "At least no one ate anybody in this one. Wait, did I miss that bit?"

"No, there isn't any cannibalism that I'm aware of in it, latent or otherwise," Hermione said.

"Suddenly I'm not grudging the sisters their little nightly parties so much," Ron said. "So, what'd you think, Harry?"

"I think I want to know if the golden cup ever wound up belonging to Helga Hufflepuff," Harry said.

Hermione and Ron both looked at him with their mouths hanging open.

"That would be one big coincidence," Ron said.

"Or maybe the world has a lot more coincidences than we give it credit for," Hermione said, and they were all silent for several moments.

"Dangling preposition," Ron said abruptly, breaking the silence.

"Huh?" Hermione said.

"Dangling preposition. You ended your sentence with the word for. That's a preposition, and you're not supposed to end sentences with those," Ron said.

"I… well, actually, you're right," Hermione said, grinning sheepishly. "Maybe I'm spending too much time with you lot."

"Nah, couldn't be," Ron said. "We've only been together all day every day for months on end. I'm surprised we haven't all killed one another yet."

"Unless you pick up that chip sack, mate, I'd say we're going to get to that point sooner rather than later," Harry said.

"Duly noted," Ron said, picking up the paper sack and Vanishing it. "There, I've done my bit for the week."

Hermione and Harry each lobbed another cushion at him, and they laughed as the wind rushed through the trees overhead, making the branches clatter together as loudly as if they had been made of silver, gold, and diamonds. Inside the tent, Harry was still troubled, the fear of what would soon come never far from his mind, but as long as he had his friends with him, he wasn't too worried. At least, not yet.


	8. The Pied Piper of Hamelin

The Pied Piper of H(ow Do You People Sleep?)amelin

It was raining again. Harry was rapidly coming to the conclusion that all it ever did in Scotland was rain or snow. Almost at once, the pelting noise on the roof of the tent suggested that the weather was proving him wrong once again as it threw a lovely bout of sleet into the mix for good measure.

Harry sighed and stared for the thousandth time at the locket, still no closer to figuring out how to destroy it. He'd toyed with the idea of throwing it into a Muggle nuclear reactor, but Hermione was quick to point out that might end in a catastrophe. Most likely, she was right. He wondered if chucking it in a live volcano would do anything, but he really didn't want to recreate the burning of Pompeii either. For now, he was out of ideas, and he felt like his brain couldn't handle another moment of trying to save the world. Even Hermione was just staring off into space tonight, apparently transfixed by a spot on the carpeting. Ron, on the other hand, was sprawled across the sofa and staring up at the ceiling, but equally silent and seemingly lost in thought.

"You know what we need?" Ron said abruptly, making the other two jump. "A pet."

"A pet?" Hermione said, raising her eyebrows and coming out of her stupor. "We can barely get enough to eat as it is. How would we feed a pet?"

"I don't know. Maybe it could hunt for itself like Puss in Boots did. I just kind of miss having one around," Ron said, shrugging. "I haven't seen Errol or Pig in ages, and even Arthur the Pygmy Puff is sort of nice company, though never tell Ginny I said it."

Harry tried not to think about Hedwig. Everything had happened so quickly the night of leaving Privet Drive for the last time that what with Mad Eye's death and George's ear, he hadn't really taken any time to mourn her properly. He didn't want to fall apart at the seams just now, though, and it seemed Hermione sensed what was up. She abruptly shifted the conversation.

"Well, at least none of us misses Scabbers," Hermione said, tucking one leg underneath her.

"No, I suppose not," Ron said, frowning. "I do sort of miss the pet I thought he was, if that makes sense."

"If I recall correctly, at various times you called him boring, useless, pathetic, and embarrassing," Hermione said, ticking the words off on her fingers.

"Well, yeah," Ron admitted, "but that was just me. That's different. It's not like I would have let anyone else call him any of that. Kind of like how we call you a know-it-all bookworm who's incapable of having fun and downright deadly dull to listen to and acted like a worn out spinster by age fourteen, but we wouldn't put up with anyone else saying it. Right, Harry?"

Harry's eyes had slowly widened to the size of dinner plates as Ron had gone into the litany of Hermione's supposed faults, and his only reply was to move as far as possible away from Ron so as not to be in the path of any jinxes.

"Uh, Harry?" Ron said, now sounding significantly terrified, and Harry schooled himself not to look in Hermione's direction because whatever facial expression was going across her features at the moment probably made Voldemort in a rage look as dangerous as a Flobberworm by comparison.

"Oh, pants," Harry heard Ron mutter under his breath.

Harry risked a glance in Hermione's direction and immediately wished he hadn't. It was worse than he'd imagined. She wasn't angry. She was crying.

"That's not what I meant!" Ron half-yelled, looking panic stricken. "I don't mean you're, I mean, you're not, there isn't, you don't, HARRY! A LITTLE HELP, PLEASE!"

"Ron's a git," Harry blurted out.

"Yeah, I'm a git!" Ron said, nodding fervently. "A great big prat of a git!"

"Yeah, giant git. Troll-sized. And he's really rather stupid," Harry added quickly. "But then you know that."

"Dumb as a garden gnome. A particularly dense one, really," Ron said. "One that makes Crabbe and Goyle look bright in comparison."

"It's true," Harry said.

"I see," Hermione said in a tone that suggested she didn't believe any of it past Ron's cruel assessment of her. "I think I'm going to go to bed early as I've had enough of today. Good night."

As she got awkwardly to her feet and began to make her way to the curtained nook where Hermione's bed was, Ron did something extremely rash. He bolted off the couch, stumbled after her, and slung his arms around her tightly in what looked like a bone crushing hug.

"Really, 'mione," he said, a look of total terror on his face. "I didn't mean it. My mouth just runs away from me sometimes, you know how it is. You're not… any of that. I wouldn't rather be trapped with anyone else in all the world on this Merlin forsaken camping trip without end. I'm just tired and hungry and cross at the world is all, and I'm not thinking straight. Sorry."

Harry felt like he really should be in some other place, but other than wandering out of the tent and into the sleet, he didn't have much choice. Hermione's face twisted a bit, and she seemed torn between aggravation, emotional turmoil, and the sudden realization that Ron was actually hugging her, something Harry guessed she'd been hoping for going on several months at this rate. Really, he might have to have a talk with Ron. He was hopelessly dense about girls.

"All right," Hermione said, clearing her throat so it sounded a bit less sniffly and looking up at him. "We're all under a lot of pressure here and I suppose none of us is acting as we normally would, so let's forget it then."

The look of relief that washed over Ron's face practically lit up the tent, and he gave her one more rather overly enthusiastic hug followed, to Harry's and Hermione's obvious surprise, by a quick peck on her cheek.

"Thanks," he said, immediately awkward again and abruptly putting the sofa between them. "So, ehm, I don't suppose we could have a story before bed?"

"A what?" Hermione asked, and Harry couldn't help thinking she looked like she'd been hit by the Whomping Willow and was trying to regain her balance. "Oh, right, yes, a story. I know those. Of course I do. Just, let me think."

"Yeah," Harry said, trying to help her find her mental footing. "What with Ron's fond attachment to Scabbers, I don't suppose you know any about a rat, do you?"

"Actually, yes," Hermione said, looking much more calm now that she was thinking about anything other than the last few minutes.

"Seriously? There's a story about a rat?" Ron asked, sitting down on the sofa again.

"A whole plague of them, actually," Hermione said, carefully sitting in the chair opposite. "It's called 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin.'"

"What kind of pie?" Ron asked, brightening up.

"No, not pie, pied," Hermione said. "It's an old word that means patched or two different colors. Basically, it means he's dressed in clothes that are two colors. A lot of the old illustrations show him wearing brightly colored striped clothing, but it may just mean that his clothes were old and raggedy."

"Oh," Ron said, sounding disappointed. "I thought it might mean people had been throwing pies at him. You know, 'Oy! Stop playing that pipe on my lawn at three in the morning!' and then splat, hit upside the head with a shepherd's pie. Pied."

"That's a rather interesting use of verbing," Hermione said.

"Verbing?" Ron asked.

"Turning a word typically used as noun into a verb via its placement and use in a sentence or by adding endings traditionally associated with verbs, such as pie, a noun, into pied, in your instance used as a past tense of a technically non-existent verb," Hermione said.

"Adjective," Ron added.

"What?" Hermione said.

"In the original title, pied describes the piper, so it would be an adjective and not a noun, right?" Ron said.

"Ehm, well, yes, though technically it's a participle form used as an adjective," Hermione said, looking impressed.

"So, adjectiving," Ron said, folding his arms and smiling. "Anyway, I think it's at least worth considering standing on people's front lawns at terribly early times in the morning and shrieking until they throw pie at us for our next meal to shut us up. We've tried everything else, including theft, covert shopping via the cloak, and rummaging dust bins full of poxy rats. I say we should try to get pied!"

"Somehow I think the authorities would probably respond long before people would start pelting us with food," Hermione said, giving him a look as though she were trying to decide if he was joking or whether the lack of food had completely unhinged him.

"Oh," Ron said, deflated. "Yeah, that'd be inconvenient. Nix that idea."

Harry looked back and forth between the two of them, convinced beyond doubt he was witnessing the single weirdest courtship in the history of humanity.

"Okay, so we've got a patched piper," Harry prompted. "Now what?"

"Once upon a time in a land far away," Ron prompted, but he was stunned when Hermione shook her head. "Did I get that part wrong?"

"Normally you'd be right, but this one begins differently," Hermione said.

"Crikey, just when you think you've got something straight in your head with these nutty things," Ron said. "How does this one begin? Twice upon a place in a time far past?"

"Not quite," Hermione said. "The strange thing about this tale is it's remarkably specific. In the year 1284 in the city of Hamelin in Germany, there was a horrible plague of rats."

"Is that a real place?" Ron asked, looking surprised.

"Yes, it is. Just a moment," Hermione said, digging around in her beaded bag, which was never far from her side. "Ah, there it is: _A Complete Atlas of Muggle Communities in Western and Central Europe_. I packed it in case we needed to start looking for Horcruxes abroad. There should be a page in here of Lower Saxony."

She flipped through the pages rapidly and finally stopped and pointed to a dot on the map very clearly labeled Hamelin. Harry and Ron both stared at it.

"So, do are any other fairy tale places in Lower Saxophone too?" Ron said, prodding the page with his finger. Harry suspected he was trying to get it to move.

"Saxony, not saxophone. If you notice, none of the other ones are really specific about where they take place," Hermione said. "That's one of the things that make this story so odd."

"And 1284?" Harry said. "Not 1283 or 1285?"

"Yes, the year is definite too," Hermione said. "Granted, not every version mentions that detail, but any of them that do always mention the same date."

"Okay," Ron said. "This is just a made up story, right?"

"That's actually quite open to debate," Hermione said mysteriously. "At least part of it probably happened, but I'd doubt all of it did."

"Okay, so there are some rats in Hamelin, which is in Lower Sexy Knee, I mean Saxony," Ron said, and Harry noticed he had abruptly moved his eyes away from Hermione's crossed legs. "They're just a few rats, so what's the catastrophe there?"

"Not just a few rats, but loads of them," Hermione said. "There were rats in the homes, in the wells, in the barns, running down the streets, skittering across the roofs, swarming in the cellars, eating everything in the farmers' fields, gnawing on clothes and furniture and food, just everywhere. It was a horrible situation."

"Yeah," Harry said, screwing his face in disgust. "I mean, we go to a school where people keep rats as pets, and even I'm a bit sick at that idea."

"I used to sleep with a rat in my bed and it's giving me collywobbles," Ron affirmed. "Fine, I'll grant they have a problem. How did they get that many rats?"

"It's a good question," Hermione said. "The thirteenth century was a time of a lot of superstition, and some of it centered around cats. People thought they might be demonic because they could see well in the dark, their eyes turn odd colors by firelight, their caterwauling, and their ability to land upright and unharmed most of the time. Even one of the popes, Gregory IX, thought the devil might appear as a black cat at meetings of witches."

"Did I miss that part of the curriculum at Hogwarts," Ron asked with wry grin, "or is that just something you lot get up to at your pajama parties?"

Hermione gave him a withering look and went on.

"Remember, even before witches and wizards went into hiding, the Muggles didn't understand very well what we did," Hermione said. "A lot of them thought we were evil, and it did tend to cause trouble for a lot of random people and even animals."

"Okay, so apparently kitty cats are bad. In Mrs. Norris's case they might even have a point. But what's that got to do with rats over running Hamelin?" Harry asked.

"Well, a lot of communities killed cats since they thought they were demons, and that led to a rapid increase in the number of rats in certain areas," Hermione said.

"Suddenly I feel a lot less sorry for the people in Hamelin," Ron said with a frown. "I may not be overly keen on cats, but killing them is way too far over the line."

"Quite," Hermione said with firm nod. "It was even more dangerous since rats could carry the Black Plague, and that wiped out a lot of towns and cities back then, so they really were in trouble. The people of Hamelin simply couldn't catch all the rats, and none of the poisons or traps they were using worked. Then one day, a mysterious stranger came to town."

"The Tarted Tambourine Player?" Ron asked, all wide-eyed innocence, but the wink he shot to Harry suggested he wasn't quite as daft as he let on.

"The Pied Piper," Hermione said, over enunciating it, but her smile left no doubt that she was wise to him as well. "Yes, he went to the mayor of the town and said he could get rid of all the rats in return for payment. The mayor, thinking that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to end the plague of rats, agreed to a sum in gold coins if the piper succeeded."

"Really, the mayor wins either way. Either the piper can't do it and he doesn't have to pay, or the piper can and the mayor can stop having to fish rat droppings out of his morning tea," Ron said.

"Ronald, please!" Hermione said, looking disgusted. "Your choice of imagery!"

"Well, it's true!" Ron said. "I doubt they're all politely using the loo and washing up after."

"Anyway, what does the piper do?" Harry asked, trying hard to forget that picture.

"The next morning, the piper came back to town just at sunrise. He began to play a strange, hypnotic melody on his pipe, and after a few moments, all the rats, thousands of them, came pouring out of the homes and into the street towards the piper," Hermione said.

"Blech," Ron said. "If I were him, I think I'd drop the pipe and run."

"Except that's not at all what he did. Instead, the piper began to dance as he played, and the rats followed him wherever he went, cavorting and dancing as well."

"Cavorting rats?" Harry said. "Somehow that's almost more disturbing."

"Eventually, the piper and his companions came to the bridge over the River Weser, and the rats dived in of their own accord, every last one, and were all drowned," Hermione said.

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

"You do realize what that sounds like, right?" Harry said.

"If you're thinking of the Imperius Curse, then yes," Hermione said.

"Blimey, is it possible to cast it on that many animals at one time?" Ron asked.

"I don't know. It certainly does work on animals since Crouch used it perfectly on spiders in Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Remember, he even threatened to have the spider drown itself like the rats. There were supposed to be a lot of wizards under it all at the same time in the last war, so controlling more than one entity isn't impossible. I suppose if there was a wizard who was particularly gifted at it, he might be able to work out a way to do it, but it would take a lot of concentration," Hermione said.

"Yeah, I'm not sure I like this piper fellow," Ron said. "'It seems a bit rude, killing all the rats he'd just had a dance number with. Couldn't he just have Vanished them all rather than turning them into suicidal puppets and drowning them? Rather excessive, that."

"It is a bit sinister, I agree, but the people of Hamelin were very happy to have their town free of rats once more," Hermione said.

"Now that I can see," Harry said. "So how much did the mayor pay the piper?"

"Nothing," Hermione said.

"Wait, nothing? The piper did exactly what he said he was going to do, though," Ron said, looking angry. "They cheated him!"

"Not exactly the brightest lot out there, are they?" Harry said. "Take a fellow who can convince every rat in the village to drown itself, and then don't pay him. Brilliant idea."

"You've seen the problem exactly," Hermione said. "The mayor was a very greedy fellow and said that since all the piper had done was play a tune, he should be content with a single copper, the usual fee for such a service. The piper was furious that he hadn't been paid, and he left the town, promising to come back and wreak his vengeance upon them all."

"Wreak?" Ron said, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"It means he'll do something awful," Hermione said.

"Yeah, I know, but wreak? It's just such an odd word. I mean, do people wreak anything other than vengeance? Can you wreak happiness or fun or laughter or something?"

"Well, I've heard of wreaking destruction or havoc," Hermione said, tilting her head in consideration, "but aside from that, no. The connotations of the word are heavily negative."

"Okay, so the piper, who I have to admit I'm kind of siding with at this point, leaves town without so much as a Knut in his pocket for his trouble and fully intent on wreaking. Then what?" Ron asked.

"Then nothing happened for several long weeks," Hermione said, "and the townspeople began to think his threat was empty."

"That's usually when trouble starts," Ron said.

"Precisely, for they let their guard down. On June 26, the feast of St. Peter and Paul, all the people of the town were in church when the pied piper returned," Hermione continued.

"Wait, not only do we get a specific city, and a river on top of it, and a year, but now we've got an actual date?" Harry said.

"Yes, though a few sources list it as June 22 instead, though that could be a transcription error," Hermione said. "At either 7:00 in the morning or noon, depending on the source—"

"Now we've got the actual time? What is this, the fairy tale news report?" Ron asked.

"—the piper came to the village square. However, instead of his previous brightly colored suit of clothes, he was dressed all in green with an odd little hat of red with a feather on it," Hermione said.

"Why green?" Harry asked.

"Some of the sources say it was to make him look like a hunter, but there's a fairly strong tradition of the color green being linked to the Fae, at least in the British Isles, and it's often regarded as bad luck," Hermione explained.

"Which is probably why Slytherins wear it," Ron said. "Bunch of cheeky gits, wandering around in green, thinking they're so threatening. Anyway, wild guess. The piper pulls out his pipe and lo and behold, all the rats coming running back into the village and he leaves them to sort out the muddle for themselves. How close am I?"

"That does seem perfectly logical and really quite just," Hermione said.

Ron grinned broadly at Harry, obviously thrilled with his success.

"But that's not what happened," she added.

"Oh," Ron said, looking very disappointed.

"However, it was an extremely good guess, and frankly I like it much more than the way the story does go," Hermione hurried to mention.

"Fine, so the piper comes back in new clothes, but he doesn't bring rats," Harry said. "What's his revenge?"

"Well, Ron had it at least a bit right. He did begin to play his pipe again, starting with nine loud blasts," Hermione said.

"What came out of the houses this time?" Ron asked.

"The town's children," Hermione said.

"I thought you said all the townspeople were in church?" Harry said.

"Yes, the stories to agree on that point, but apparently they'd left the children home. That actually wasn't terribly unusual back then since church services could be very long and older children could have seen to their younger brothers and sisters," Hermione said. "Every child over the age of four, and for some reason the mayor's grown daughter came out to the piper as though they were all in a trance and began to dance."

"Wait, what? The kids started following him?" Ron said, looking ill.

"Yes. The piper began to dance along the streets, and the children, never once questioning what they were doing, danced along in a long line behind," Hermione said.

"On a scale of one to one hundred in disturbing, this breaks the scale like a Hippogriff sat on it," Ron said. "He's using the Imperius on a load of kids! That's just sick!"

"And where's he taking them?" Harry said. "Tell me it's not the river or I'm not sleeping for a week."

"No, none of the versions do that. The piper led them out of town, and then the story has a few different possible endings," Hermione said.

"Right," Ron said. "Multiple choice nightmares. Gotta have that."

"In one, the piper led the children to a cave in the side of a great mountain, and once they were all inside, the cave closed up. Some say the children continued through the mountain and came out the other side somewhere in Transylvania and founded a city, while others say that the 130 children simply disappeared, never to be seen again," Hermione said.

"Wait, if all the kids were gone, and the adults were all in church, then how did anyone find out what happened?" Ron asked.

"Oh, three children didn't go with the others," Hermione said.

"Why?" Ron asked.

"One was blind, another deaf, and the third had a bad leg. The blind one was unable to follow by touch the steep path of the other children, the deaf one had been unable to hear the music and had not fallen under its spell but followed the children out of curiosity for a while, and the one with the bad leg had been unable to keep up. Among the three of them, the villagers were able to piece together the story and understand what had happened," Hermione said.

"This is seriously one of the less pleasant stories you've ever told us, and that's saying something," Ron said.

"What's the other version?" Harry asked.

"That one's a bit better. In that one, the piper led the children to a hill called either Koppenberg or Koppelberg, and the side of the hill opened up to reveal a lovely enchanted land that the children entered. They stayed there until the townspeople agreed to pay the piper double the original amount of gold, at which time he released them unharmed," Hermione said.

"That's less disturbing, though again that sounds a bit like the stories my Aunt Tessie used to tell us about fairy hills and the like, warning us to stay a good way away from them. Maybe the piper really was one of the Fae," Ron said. "If so, holding a bunch of kids ransom until he gets paid is actually a fairly light penalty. Most of them would go the first route."

"This is just a story though, right?" Harry asked.

"Well, it's hard to say," Hermione said. "The actual documents of the town all date themselves from the day that 'the children left,' and a church window from 1300, only a few years after the event, does depict a brightly dressed piper leading off children dressed in white. Some people think that what really happened is a plague killed the town's children, and the piper with his magical abilities and control of rats is a personification of death. Others think that perhaps it's a reference to some sort of Children's Crusade, that a highly gifted speaker convinced the children to follow him on a trip to the Holy Land or off on a military battle that they never returned from. Others think there was just a large immigration of people from the town to another area of Europe far to the east, and that the term 'children' is used to refer to people of the town in general rather than actual children."

"Uh… huh," Ron said. "So basically, some wizard or Fae got angry over not being paid and kidnapped a bunch of Muggle children."

"Honestly, that really does seem like the most logical solution," Hermione said. "The story obviously has morals about greed as well as possibly the importance of hospitality and a certain xenophobic undertone regarding strangers, but the base incident certainly fits your assessment, Ron."

"So… who's the good guy in all this?" Ron asked.

"You mean the protagonist?" Hermione said. "That's another good question. You'd be hard pressed to find a hero in it at all. Both the piper and the townspeople have bad traits, and an argument could be made that they both protagonists and antagonists simultaneously, a situation verging on modern moral cynicism with a heavy undercurrent of pessimistic fatalism."

"Uh huh," Ron said, nodding in a way Harry knew meant he had no idea what's she'd said. "Exactly."

"It sounds a bit too much like the Deathly Hallows story from Beedle," Harry finally said. "Death shows up to make a bargain that he knows he can win through somebody else's greed. No matter what happens, he knows he's doing to get them all in the end."

"Well, that's a cheerful outlook," Ron said, giving Harry a look. "If that's the case, then why don't we just turn ourselves in to the nearest Death Eater patrol and be done with it."

"Because that's not what it's about at all," Hermione said, looking at him sharply. "The villagers had a choice. So do we. They could have cleaned up their own mess, or they could have paid the piper, but because they let things get completely out of control and ignored the future, the worst thing possible happened. Maybe people just needed to realize what was happening and fight to stop it instead of ignoring what was going on outside their own windows. That's what we're doing. We're telling the piper no, he can't have the future."

Harry and Ron looked at her for a moment.

"Hermione?" Ron said tentatively. "Have you ever considered a future in politics?"

"Good heavens, no," Hermione said looking flustered. "I'd be utterly miserable in all that bureaucracy. Who in their right mind would go into the Ministry?"

"Well, if you ever change your mind, you could sure whip up a crowd," Ron said. "It's about time to turn in, though. Another long day tomorrow."

The other two nodded, and in a few moments the lights were turned down and they had each gone to their own beds.

"Harry, any idea where we're off to tomorrow?" Ron asked.

"No idea," Harry said.

"I suppose we could always try Lower Sexy Knee," Hermione said out of the darkness, but Harry could hear the suppressed laughter in her voice, and he pictured Ron's blush perfectly. "Night all."

Harry stifled a laugh and rolled over, trying to bury his worries in sleep. That night, though, he dreamed of a piper playing in the streets of Hogsmeade, leading the children in a macabre dance, his red eyes malevolently glittering in the night.


End file.
